tihvaxy  of  ^he  Cheolocjical  ^tminaxy 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


•tt^^D* 


BV  4211  .B76  1891 
Brooks,  Phillips,  1835-1893 
Lectures  on  preaching, 
delivered  before  the 


LECTURES  ON   PREACHING 


DEiaVERED    BEFORE  THK 


DIVINITY  SCHOOL  OF  YALE  COLLEGE 


IN  JANUARY  AND   FKBR  UAR  Y,  1871 


REV.  PHILLIPS     BPtOOKS 

O.ECT0K   OK  TRINITY   CHURCH,    BOSTON 


NEW  YORK 

E.    P.    BUTTON   &   COMPANY 

31    WEST    TWENTY-THIRD    STREET 
1891 


OOPTBIQaT,  1877 
V.  BUTTON  AND  COMPANY. 


\From  the  Records  of  the  Corporation  of  Yale  College,  April  12, 187 1.[ 

"  Voted,  To  accept  the  offer  of  Mr.  Henry  jS.  Sagk,  of  Brooklyu, 
of  the  sum  of  ten  tliousaud  dollars,  tor  tlie  fouiuliuij  of  a  Lectureship 
in  the  Theological  Departmer.t.  in  a  branch  of  I'astoral  Theology,  to 
be  designated  '  The  Lyman  Ueecher  Leccuresnip  on  Preachiug,'  to  be 
filled  from  time  to  time,  upon  the  appointment  of  the  Corpoiation,  by 
a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  of  any  evangelical  denomination,  who  has 
been  markedly  successful  in  the  special  work  of  the' Christian  miu- 
istrj." 


CONTENTS. 


aOTCRB  PUQl 

I.   The  Two  Elements  in  Preaching  ....  1 

11.   The  Preacher  Himself 35 

III.  The  Preacher  in  his  Work 72 

IV.  The  Idea  of  the  Sermon 108 

V.   The  Making  of  the  Sermon     .        .                .        .  143 

VI.   The  Congregation          .        ...        .        .        .  180 

VII.   The  Ministry  for  our  Age 217 

VIII.   The  Value  of  the  Human  Soul         .        .        .  255 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING. 


OINCE  I  received,  some  months  ago,  tlie  invitation 
^^  to  deliver  these  lectures  which  I  begin  to-day,  I 
have  been  led  to  ponder  much  upon  the  principles  by 
which  I  have  only  half  consciously  been  living  and 
working  for  many  years.  This  is  part  of  the  debt 
which  I  owe  to  those  who  have  honored  me  with 
their  invitation.  It  is  interesting  to  one's  self  to 
examine  and  recognize  and  arrange  the  ideas  which 
have  been  slowly  taking  shape  within  him  during  the 
busy  years  of  work.  I  shall  be  very  glad  if  you  too 
are  interested,  as  I  try  to  recount  them  to  you,  and 
very  thankful  if  you  find  in  them  any  help  or  in- 
spiration. 

The  personal  character  of  this  lectureship  is  very 
evident.  It  is  always  to  be  filled  by  preachers  in 
active  work,  who  are  to  come  and  speak  to  you  of 
preaching.  It  is  not  a  Homiletieal  Professorship.  It 
is  each  man's  own  life  in  the  ministry  of  which  he  is 
to  tell.     But  certainly  you  do  not  expect  from  your 


2  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

Buccessive  lecturers  a  series  of  anecdotes  of  what  haa 
happened  to  them  in  their  ministry,  nor  a  mere  re 
cital  of  their  ways  of  working.  It  cannot  be  intended 
that  this  lectureship  should  exalt  the  interviewer  into 
an  organized  and  permanent  institution.  The  hope 
must  rather  be  that  as  each  preacher  speaks  of  our 
common  work  in  his  own  way,  whatever  there  may 
be  of  value  in  his  personal  experience  may  come,  not 
directly  but  indirectly,  into  what  he  says,  and  make 
the  privilege  of  preaching  shine  for  the  moment  in 
your  eyes  with  the  same  kind  of  light  which  it  has 
won  in  his. 

I  feel  as  I  begin  something  of  the  fear  which  I  have 
often  felt  in  commencing  a  new  sermon.  It  has  often 
seemed  to  me  as  if  the  vast  amount  of  preaching  which 
people  hear  must  have  one  bad  effect,  in  leaving  on 
their  minds  a  vague  impression  that  this  Christian  life 
to  which  they  are  so  continually  urged  must  be  a  very 
difficult  and  complicated  thing  that  it  should  take 
Buch  a  multitude  of  definitions  to  make  it  clear.  And 
80  there  is  some  danger  lest  these  multiplied  lectures 
upon  preaching  should  give  to  those  who  are  prepar- 
ing to  preach  an  uncomfortable  feeling  that  the  work 
of  preaching  is  a  thing  of  many  rules,  hard  to  under- 
stand, and  needing  a  great  deal  of  commentary.  For 
my  part,  I  am  startled  when  I  think  how  few  and 
simple  are  the  things  which  I  have  to  say  to  you, 
The  principles  which  one  can  recognize  in  his  minis- 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PRE/i  CHING.         3 

try  are  \evj  broad  and  plain.  The  applications  of 
those  principles  are  endless  ;  but  I  should  be  very 
sorry  indeed  if  anything  that  I  shall  say  should  lead 
any  of  you  to  confound  the  few  plain  principles  with 
their  many  varied  applications,  and  so  make  you  think 
that  work  complicated  and  difficult  which  to  him  who 
is  equipped  for  it,  and  loves  it,  is  the  easiest  and  sim- 
plest work  in  life. 

Let  me  say  one  word  more  in  introduction.  He 
who  is  called  upon  to  give  these  lectures  cannot  but 
remember  that  they  are  given  every  year,  and  that 
he  has  had  very  able  and  faithful  predecessors.  There 
are  certainly,  therefore,  some  things  which  he  may 
venture  to  omit  without  being  supposed  to  be  either 
ignorant  or  careless  of  them.  There  are  certain  first 
principles,  of  primary  importance,  which  he  may  take 
for  granted  in  all  that  he  says.  They  are  so  funda- 
mental, that  they  must  be  always  present,  and  their 
power  mnst  pervade  every  treatment  of  the  work 
wliich  is  built  upon  them.  But  they  need  not  be  de- 
liberately stated  anew  each  year.  It  would  make 
these  courses  of  lectures  very  monotonous ;  and  one 
may  venture  to  assume  that  there  are  some  elemen- 
tary principles  upon  whose  truth  all  students  of  theol- 
ogy are  agreed,  and  whose  importance  they  all  feel. 

I  cannot  begin,  then,  to  speak  to  you  who  are  pre- 
\.  iring  for  the  work  of  preaching,  without  congratu 


4  LECTURES  ON  PREACH  I  a\(J. 

lating  you  most  earnestly  upon  the  prospect  that  liea 
before  you.  I  cannot  help  bearing  witness  to  the  joy 
of  the  life  which  you  anticipate.  There  is  no  career 
that  can  compare  with  it  for  a  moment  in  the  rich 
and  satisfying  relations  into  which  it  brings  a  man 
with  his  fellow-men,  in  the  deep  and  interesting  in- 
sight which  it  gives  him  into  human  nature,  and  in 
the  chance  of  the  best  culture  for  his  own  character. 
Its  delight  never  grows  old,  its  interest  never  wanes, 
its  stimulus  is  never  exhausted.  It  is  different  to  a 
man  at  each  period  of  his  life ;  but  if  he  is  the  min- 
ister he  ought  to  be,  there  is  no  age,  from  the  earliest 
years  when  he  is  his  people's  brother  to  the  late  days 
when  he  is  like  a  father  to  the  children  on  whom  he 
looks  down  from  the  pulpit,  in  which  the  ministry 
has  not  some  fresh  charm  and  chance  of  usefulness  to 
offer  to  the  man  whose  heart  is  in  it.  Let  us  never 
think  of  it  in  any  other  waj'^  than  this.  Let  us  re- 
joice with  one  another  that  in  a  world  where  there 
are  a  great  many  good  and  happy  things  for  men  to 
do,  God  has  given  us  the  best  and  happiest,  and  made 
us  preachers  of  His  Triitli. 

I  propose  in  this  introductory  lecture  to  lay  before 
you  some  thoughts  which  cover  the  whole  field  which 
we  shall  have  to  traverse;  and  the  lectures  which  fol- 
low will  be  mainly  applications  and  illustrations  of 
the  principles  which  I  lay  down  to-day.    It  may  make 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.  5 
my  first  lecture  seem  a  little  too  general,  but  perhaps 
it  will  help  us  to  understand  each  other  better  as  we 

go  on. 

What,  then,  is  preaching,  of  which  we  are  to  speak  / 
It  is  not  hard  to  find  a  definition.     Preaching  is  the 
communication  of  truth  by  man  to  men.     It  has  in 
it   two   essential    elements,   truth    and    personality. 
Neither  of  those  can  it  spare  and  still  be  preaching. 
The  truest  truth,  the  most  authoritative  statement  of 
God's  will,  communicated   in   any  other  way  than 
through  the   personality   of   brother  man  to  men  is 
not  preached  truth.     Suppose  it  written  on  the  sky, 
suppose  it  embodied  in  a  book  which  has  been  so  long 
held  in  reverence  as  the  direct  utterance  of  God  that 
the  vivid  personahty  of  the  men  who  wrote  its  pages 
has  well-nigh  faded  out   of  it;   in  neither  of  these 
cases   is  there  any  preaching.      And   on   the   other 
hand,  if   men  speak  to  other  men  that  which  they 
do  not  claim  for  truth,  if  they  use  their  powers  of 
persuasion  or   of  entertainment  to  make  other  men 
Usten  to  their  speculations,  or  do  their  will,  or  applaud 
their  cleverness,  that  is  not  preaching  either.     The 
first  lacks  personality.    The  second  lacks  truth.    And 
preaching  is  the  bringing  of  truth  through  person- 
ality.    It  must  have  both  elements.      It  is  in  the 
different  proportion   in  which  the  two  are  mingled 
that  the  difference  between  two  great  classes  of  ser- 
mons and  preaching  lies.     It  is  in  the  defect  of  one 


O  LECTURES   OX  PREACHING. 

or  the  other  element  that  every  sermon  and  preaehei 
falls  short  of  the  perfect  standard.  It  is  in  the  ab- 
sence of  one  or  the  other  element  that  a  discourse 
ceases  to  be  a  sermon,  and  a  man  ceases  to  be  a 
preacher  altogether. 

If  we  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
ministry  we  can  see  how  distinctly  and  deliberately 
Jesus  chose  this  method  of  extending  the  knowledge 
of  Himself  throughout  the  world.  Other  methods  no 
doubt  were  open  to  Him,  but  He  deliberately  selected 
this.  He  taught  His  truth  to  a  few  men  and  then 
He  said,  "  Now  go  and  tell  that  truth  to  other  men." 
Both  elements  were  there,  in  John  the  Baptist  who 
prepared  the  way  for  Him,  in  the  seventy  whom  He 
sent  out  before  His  face,  and  in  the  little  company 
who  started  from  the  chamber  of  the  Pentecost  to 
proclaim  the  new  salvation  to  the  world.  If  He  gave 
them  the  power  of  Avorking  miracles,  the  miracles 
themselves  wore  not  the  final  purpose  for  which  He 
gave  it.  The  power  of  miracle  was,  as  it  were,  a 
divine  fire  pervading  the  Apostle's  being  and  open- 
ing his  individuality  on  either  side  ;  making  it  more 
open  God-wards  by  the  sense  of  awful  privilege,  mak- 
ing it  more  open  man- wards  by  the  inipressivenesa 
and  the  helpfulness  with  which  it  was  clothed. 
Everything  that  was  peculiar  in  Christ's  treatment 
of  those  men  was  meroly  part  of  the  process  by  which 
the    Maflter   prepared   tlieir   personality  to    be    a    i'lt 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.         1 

iiedium  for  the  communication  of  His  Word.  When 
His  treatment  of  them  was  complete,  they  stood 
fused  like  glass,  and  able  to  take  God's  truth  in  per- 
fectly on  one  side  and  send  it  out  perfectly  on  the 
other  side  of  their  transparent  natures. 

This  was  the  method  by  which  Christ  chose  that 
His  Gospel  should  be  spread  through  the  world.  It 
was  a  method  that  might  have  been  applied  to  the 
dissemination  of  any  truth,  but  we  can  see  why  it 
was  especially  adapted  to  the  truth  of  Christianity. 
For  that  truth  is  preeminently  personal.  However 
*;he  Gospel  may  be  capable  of  statement  in  dogmatic 
Zorm,  its  truest  statement  we  know  is  not  in  dogma 
but  in  personal  life.  Christianity  is  Christ ;  and  Ave 
can  easily  understand  how  a  truth  which  is  of  such 
peculiar  character  that  a  person  can  stand  forth  and 
Bay  of  it  "  I  am  the  Truth,"  must  always  be  best 
conveyed  through,  must  indeed  be  almost  incapable 
of  being  perfectly  conveyed  except  through  person- 
ality. And  so  some  form  of  preaching  must  be  es- 
sential to  the  prevalence  and  spread  of  the  knowledge 
of  Christ  among  men.  There  seems  to  be  some  such 
meaning  as  this  in  the  words  of  Jesus  when  He  said 
to  His  disciples,  "  As  my  Father  has  sent  me  into 
llie  world  even  so  have  I  sent  you  into  the  world." 
It  was  the  continuation,  out  to  the  minutest  ramifi- 
cations of  the  new  system  of  influence,  of  that  per- 
6onal  method  which  the  Incarnation  itself  had  in* 
•^olved. 


8  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

If  this  be  true,  then,  it  establishes  the  first  of  iiL 
principles  concerning  the  ministry  and  preparation 
for  the  ministry.  Truth-through  Personality  is  cur 
description  of  real  preachijig.  The  truth  must  come 
really  through  the  person,  not  merely  over  his  lij)3, 
not  merely  into  his  understanding  and  out  through 
his  pen.  It  must  come  through  his  character,  hia 
affections,  his  whole  mJfcellectuaL  aad-mflraT Jjeing. 
It  must  come  genuinelj_through_him.  I  think  that, 
granting  equal  intelligence  and  study,  here  is  the 
great  difference  which  we  feel  between  two  preachers 
of  the  Word.  The  Gospel  has  come  over  one  of  them 
and  reaches  us  tinged  and  flavored  with  his  superfi- 
cial characteristics,  belittled  with  his  littleness.  The 
Gospel  has  come  through  the  other,  and  we  receive  it 
impressed  and  winged  with  all  the  earnestness  and 
strength  that  there  is  in  him.  In  the  first  case  the 
man  has  been  but  a  printing  machine  or  a  trumpet. 
In  the  other  case  he  has  been  a  true  man  and  a  real 
messenfrer  of  God.  We  know  how  the  views  which 
theologians  have  taken  of  the  agency  of  the  Bible 
writers  in  their  work  differ  just  here.  There  have 
been  those  who  would  make  them  mere  passive  in- 
struments. The  thought  of  our  own  time  lias  more 
and  more  tended  to  consider  their  the  active  mes- 
aengers  of  the  Word  of  God.  This  is  the  highfr 
thought  of  inspiration.  And  this  is  the  only  true 
thought  of  the  Christian  preachership.     I  tlunk  that 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.         9 

one  of  the  most  perplexing  points  in  a  man's  minis- 
try is  in  a  certain  variation  of  this  power  of  trans- 
mission. Sometimes  you  are  all  open  on  both  sides, 
open  to  God  and  to  fellow-man.  At  other  times 
something  clogs  and  clouds  your  transparency.  You 
will  know  the  differences  of  the  sermons  which  you 
preach  in  those  two  conditions,  and,  however  little 
they  describe  it  to  themselves  or  know  its  causes, 
your  congregation  will  feel  the  difference  full  well. 

But  this,  as  I  began  to  say,  decrees  for  us  in  gen- 
eral what  the  preparation  for  the  ministry  is.  It 
must  be  nothing  less  than  the  making  of  a  man. 
It  cannot  be  the  mere  training  to  certain  tricks.  It 
cannot  be  even  the  furnishing  with  abundant  knowl- 
edge. It  must  be  nothing  less  than  the  kneading 
and  tempering  of  a  man's  whole  nature  till  it  becomes 
of  such  a  consistency  and  quality  as  to  be  capable  of 
transmission.  This  is  the  largeness  of  the  preacher's 
culture.  It  is  not  for  me,  standing  here  or  anywhere, 
to  depreciate  the  work  which  our  theological  schools 
do.  It  certainly  is  not  my  place  to  undervalue  the 
usefulness  of  lectures  on  preaching,  or  books  on  cler- 
ical manners.  But  none  of  these  things  make  the 
preacher.  You  are  surprised,  when  you  read  the 
biographies  of  the  most  successful  ministers,  to  see 
how  small  a  part  of  their  culture  came  from  their 
professional  schools.  It  is  a  real  part  but  i-t  is  w 
imall  part.    Everything  that  opens  their  lives  towards 


10  LECTURES   ON  J'REACJIIAG. 

God  and  towards  man  makes  part  (jf  their  education 
The  professional  schools  fuiniftli  tlicm.  The  whole 
world  is  the  scjiool  that  makes  tliem.  This  is  the 
value  of  the  biographies  of  tiie  great  preachers  if  we 
can  only  read  them  largely  enough,  if  we  can  lead 
tliem  not  in  a  small  desire  to  copy  their  details  of  Vw- 
ing,  but  in  a  large  sympathetic  wish  to  know  what  their 
life  was,  to  see  how  the  men  became  the  men  they  were. 
This  is  the  value  of  Baxter's  story  of  himself,  so  unsus- 
piciously confident  of  the  readei-'s  interest  in  every- 
thing that  concerns  him,  or  of  Robertson's  painful  but 
precious  history,  or  of  the  strong,  manly,  constantly 
advancin*;  life  of  Norman  Macleod.  I  think  that 
either  of  these  books  might  be  the  ruin  of  a  young 
minister  who  read  it  for  the  methods  of  his  work,  as 
either  of  them  might  be  the  making  of  him  if  he  read 
it  for  the  spirit  and  the  spiritual  history  of  the  man 
of  whom  it  told  the  story.  In  a  time  Avhich  abounds 
in  biographies  as  ours  does,  especially  in  the  biogra- 
phies of  preachers,  it  is  woith  while,  1  am  sure,  to 
remember  that  another  man's  life  may  be  the  noblest 
inspiration  or  the  heaviest  burden,  according  as  wo 
take  its  sjiirit  into  our  spirit,  or  only  bind  its  meth- 
ods like  a  fagot  of  dry  sticks  upon  our  back. 

One  other  consequence  of  the  fundamental  charac- 
ter of  preaching  which  I  have  stated  must  be  the 
perpetual  function  of  the  puljiit.  Every  now  and 
then  we  hear  some  speculations  about  the  prospects 


THE   TWO  KLKMEXTS  L\  PREACHING.       11 

of  preaching.  Will  men  continue  to  preach  and  will 
other  men  continue  to  go  and  hear  them  ?  Books  are 
multiplying  enormousl}'.  Any  man  may  feel  reason- 
ably sure  on  any  Sunday  morning  that  in  a  book 
which  he  can  choose  from  his  shelf  he  can  read  some- 
thing more  wisely  thought  and  more  perfectly  ex- 
pressed than  he  will  hear  from  the  pulpit  if  he  goes 
to  church.  Why  should  he  go  ?  One  answer  to  the 
question  certainly  would  be  in  the  assertion  that 
preaching  is  only  one  of  the  functions  of  the  Christian 
Church  and  that,  even  if  preaching  should  grow  ob- 
solete, there  would  still  remain  reason  enough  why 
Christians  should  meet  together  for  worship  and  for 
brotherhood.  But  even  if  we  look  at  preaching  only, 
it  must  still  be  true  that  nothing  can  ever  take  its 
place  because  of  the  personal  element  that  is  in  it. 
No  multiplication  of  books  can  ever  supersede  the 
human  voice.  No  newly  opened  channel  of  approach 
to  man's  mind  and  heart  can  ever  do  away  with 
man's  readiness  to  receive  impressions  through  his 
fellow-man.  There  is  no  evidence,  I  think,  in  all 
the  absorption  in  books  which  characterizes  our  much 
reading  age,  of  any  real  decline  of  the  interest  in 
preaching.  Let  a  man  be  a  true  preacher,  really 
uttering  the  truth  through  his  own  personality,  and 
it  is  strange  how  men  will  gather  to  listen  to  him. 
We  hear  that  the  day  of  the  pulpit  is  past,  and.  then 
«ome  morning  the  voice  of  a  true  preacher  is  heard 


12  LECTURES   OX  PllEACIIiya. 

in  the  land  and  all  the  streets  are  full  of  men  crowd- 
ing to  hear  him,  just  exactly  as  were  the  streets  of 
Constantinople  when  Chrysostom  was  going  to  preach 
at  the  Church  of  the  Apostles,  or  the  streets  of  Lou- 
don wlien  Latimer  was  bravely  telling  his  truth  at 
St.  Paul's. 

The  same  is  true  of  reading  sermons.  I  think,  as 
I  shall  liave  occasion  to  say  more  fully  in  some  other 
lecture,  that  a  sermon  that  has  the  true  sermon 
quality  in  it,  when  it  is  made,  {)reserves  that  quality 
even  under  t<»ae  constraints  of  manuscript  or  print. 
And  books  of  sermons  which  n-ally  bring  the  truth 
through  personality  to  men,  were  never  bought  and 
read  more  largely  than  they  are  to-ilay. 

No  ;  the  truth  about  this  matter  of  the  competition 
of  the  printed  book  witii  the  preached  sermon,  seems 
to  be  what  is  true  of  every  competition.  It  h;is  led 
to  more  discrimination.  There  were  things  which 
people  went  to  hear  once  but  which  they  will  not  go 
to  hear  to-day.  They  can  read  better  things  of  the 
same  sort  at  home.  But  those  things  are  not  ser- 
mon?. They  never  were  sermons.  The  competition 
of  print  has  interfered  very  much,  is  destined  to  in- 
terfere nuu-ii  more,  —  we  may  hope  will  not  cease  to 
interfere  till  it  has  caused  it  to  disapjicar,  —  with  the 
"  pulpit  droning  of  old  saws,"  with  the  monotonous 
reiteration  of  commonplaces  and  abstractions ;  but 
the  true  sermou,  the  utterance  of  1  ving  truth  by  In- 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.       13 

ing  men,  was  never  more  powerful  than  it  is  to-day. 
People  never  came  to  it  with  more  earnestness,  of 
carried  away  from  it  more  good  results. 

I  cannot  help  begging  you,  in  the  ministry  which 
is  before  you,  to  beware  of  excusing  your  own  failures 
by  foolish  talk  about  the  obstinate  aversion  which  the 
age  has  to  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.     It  is  the 
meanest  and  shallowest  kind  of  excuse.     The  age  has 
no  aversion  to  preaching  as  such.     It  may  not  listen 
to  your  preaching.     If  that  prove  to  be  the  case,  look 
for  the  fault  first  in  your  preaching,  and  not  in  the 
age.     I  wonder  at  the  eagerness  and  patience  of  con- 
gregations.    I  think  that  there  are  two  things  wliich 
we  ministers  have  to  guard  against  in  this  matter  :  one, 
the  tendency  of  which  I  have  just  spoken,  to  blame 
the  impatience  which  men  feel  with  false  pretences  of 
preaching,  for  the  lack  of  success  which  onr  preach- 
ing brings ;  the  other,  an  exactly  opposite  tendency, 
to  trust  so  confidently  to  the  much  tried  patience  of 
the  people,  that  we  shall  do  our  work  carelessly  from 
feeling  too  secure  about  our  power.     He  who  escapes 
both  of  these  dangers,  he  who  feels  the   magnitude 
and  privilege  of  his  work,  he  who  both  respects  and 
trusts  his  people,  neither  assuming  their  indifference, 
so  that  he  is  paralyzed,  or  assuming  their  interest,  so 
that  he  grows  careless,  —  that  man,  I  think,  need  envy 
no  one  of  the  preachers  of  the  ages  that  are  past  the 
pulpit  in  which  he  stood,  or  the  congregation  to  which 
ae  preached. 


H  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

Let  us  look  now  for  a  few  moments  at  these  two 
elements  of  preaching  —  Truth  and  Personality  ;  the 
one  universal  and  invariable,  the  other  special  and  al- 
ways dilft^rent.  There  are  a  few  suggestions  that  I 
should  like  to  make  to  you  about  each. 

And  first  with  regard  to  the  Truth.  It  is  strancje 
how  impossible  it  is  to  separate  it  and  consider  it 
wholly  by  itself.  The  personalness  will  cling  to  it. 
There  are  two  aspects  of  the  minister's  work,  which 
we  are  constantly  meeting  in  the  New  Testament. 
They  are  really  embodied  in  two  words,  one  of  which 
is  "  message,"  and  the  other  is  "  witness.''  "  This  is 
the  message  which  we  have  heard  of  Him  and  declare 
unto  you,"  says  St.  John  in  his  first  Epistle.  "  We 
are  his  witnesses  of  these  things,"  says  St.  Peter  be- 
fore the  Council  at  Jerusalem.  In  these  two  words 
together,  I  think,  we  have  the  fundamental  concep- 
tion of  the  matter  of  all  Christian  preaching.  It  is 
to  be  a  message  given  to  us  for  transmission,  but  yet 
a  message  which  we  cannot  transmit  until  it  has  en- 
tered into  our  own  experience,  and  we  can  give  our 
own  testimony  of  its  spiritual  power.  The  minister 
who  keeps  the  word  "message"  always  written  before 
him,  as  he  prepares  his  sermon  in  his  study,  or  utters 
it  from  his  ])ulpit,  is  saved  from  the  tendency  to 
wanton  and  wild  speculation,  and  from  the  mere  pas- 
sion of  originality.  He  who  never  forgets  that  word 
"  witness,"  is  saved  from   the  unreality  of  repeating 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.       15 

by  rote  mere  forms  of  statement  which  he  has  learned 
a8  orthodox,  but  never  i-ealized  as  true.  If  you  and 
I  can  always  carry  this  double  consciousness,  that  we 
are.j31£ssen gers,  and  that  we  are  witnesses,  we  shall 
have  in  our  preaching  all  the  autkadL}L-aridJ.iidepend- 
ence  of  assured  truth,  and  yet  all  the  appeal  and 
convincingness  of  personal  belief.  It  will  not  be  we 
that  speak,  but  the  spirit  of  our  Father  that  speaketh 
in  us,  and  yet  our  sonship  shall  give  the  Fatlier's 
voice  its  utterance  and  interpretation  to  His  otlier 
children. 

I  think  that  nothing  is  more  needed  to  correct  the 
peculiar  vices  of  preaching  which  belong  to  our  time, 
than  a  new  prevalence  among  preachers  of  this  first 
conception  of  the  truth  which  they  have  to  tell  as  a 
message.  I  am  sure  that  one  great  soui'ce  of  the 
weakness  of  the  pulpit  is  the  feeling  among  the 
people  that  these  men  who  stand  up  before  them 
every  Sunday  have  been  making  up  trains  of  thought, 
and  thinking  how  they  should  "  ti*eat  their  subject," 
as  the  phrase  runs.  There  is  the  first  ground  of  the 
vicious  habit  that  our  congregations  have  of  talking 
about  the  preacher  more  than  they  think  about  the 
truth.  The  minstrel  who  sings  before  you  to  show  hia 
skill,  will  be  praised  for  his  wit,  and  rhymes,  and  voice. 
But  the  courier  who  hurries  in,  breathless,  to  bring 
you  a  message,  will  be  forgotten  in  the  message  that 
Ue  brings.     Among  the  many  sermons  I  have  heard, 


IG  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

I  III  ways  remember  one,  for  the  wonderful  way  in 
wliich  it  was  pervaded  by  thi8  quality.  It  was  a 
sermon  by  Mr.  George  Macdonald,  the  English  au- 
thor, who  was  in  this  country  a  few  years  ago  ;  and 
it  had  many  of  the  good  and  bad  characteristics  of  hia 
interesting  style.  It  had  his  brave  and  manly  hon- 
esty, and  his  tendency  to  sentimentality.  But  over 
and  through  it  all  it  had  this  quality  :  it  was  a  mes- 
sage from  God  to  these  people  by  him.  The  man 
struggled  wnth  language'as  a  child  struggles  with  his 
imperfectly  mastered  tongue,  that  will  not  tell  the 
errand  as  he  received  it,  and  has  it  in  his  mind.  .\s 
I  listened,  I  seemed  to  see  how  weak  in  contrast  was 
the  way  in  which  other  pretichers  had  amused  me 
and  challenged  my  admiration  for  the  working  of 
their  minds.  Here  was  a  gospel.  Here  were  real 
tidings.     And  you  listened  and  forgot  the  preacher. 

Whatever  else  you  count  yourself  in  the  ministr}', 
never  lose  this  fundamental  idea  of  yourself  as  a  mes- 
Bcnger.  As  to  the  way  in  which  one  shall  best  keep 
that  idea,  it  would  not  be  hard  to  state  ;  but  it  would 
involve  the  whole  story  of  th(^  Christian  life.  Here 
is  the  primary  necessity  that  the  Christian  preai-her 
should  be  a  CJhristian  first,  that  he  should  be  de»'ply 
cognizant  of  God's  authority,  and  of  the  absoluteness 
of  Christ's  truth.  That  was  one  of  the  first  princi- 
ples which  I  ventured  to  assume  as  I  began  my  lect- 
ure.    But  without  entering  so  wide  a  field,  let  me 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.       17 

Bay  one  thing  about  this  conception  of  preaching  a,, 
the  telling  of  a  message  which  constantly  impresses 
me.  I  think  that  it  would  give  to  our  preaching 
just  the  quality  which  it  appears  to  me  to  most 
lack  now.  That  quality  is  breadth.  I  do  not  mean 
liberality  of  thought,  not  tolerance  of  opinion,  nor  any- 
thing of  that  kind.  I  mean  largeness  of  movement, 
the  great  utterance  of  great  truths,  the  great  enforce- 
ment of  great  duties,  as  distinct  from  the  minute,  and 
subtle,  and  ingenious  treatment  of  little  topics,  side 
issues  of  the  soul's  life,  bits  of  anatomy,  the  bric-a- 
brac  of  theology.  Take  up,  some  Saturday,  the  list 
of  subjects  on  which  the  ministers  of  a  great  city  are 
to  preach  the  next  day.  See  how  many  of  them  seem 
to  have  searched  in  strange  coi-ners  of  the  Bible  for 
their  topics,  how  small  and  fantastic  is  the  bit  of 
truth  which  their  hearers  are  to  have  set  before  them. 
Then  turn  to  Barrow,  or  Tillotson,  or  Bushnell-— "'  Of 
beino;  imitators  of  Christ ;  "  "  That  God  is  the  onlv 
happiness  of  man  ; "  "  Every  man's  life  a  plan,  of 
God."  There  is  a  painting  of  ivory  miniatures,  and 
there  is  a  painting  of  great  frescoes.  One  kind  of 
art  is  suited  to  one  kind  of  subject,  and  another  to 
another.  I  suppose  that  all  preachers  pass  through 
some  fantastic  period  when  a  strange  text  fascinates 
them  ;  when  they  like  to  find  what  can  be  said  for 
an  hour  on  some  little  topic  on  wliich  most  meti  could 
9niy  talk  two  minutes ;  when  they  are  eager  for  sub- 

2 


18  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

Llety  more  tlmn  force,  and  for  originality  more  than 
truth.  But  as  a  preacher  grows  more  full  of  the  con- 
ception of  the  sermon  as  a  message,  he  gets  clear  of 
those  brambles.  He  comes  out  on  to  open  ground. 
His  work  grows  freer,  and  bolder,  and  broader.  He 
loves  the  simplest  texts,  and  the  great  truths  which 
run  like  rivers  through  all  life.  God's  sovereignty, 
Christ's  redemption,  man's  hope  in  the  Spirit,  the 
privilege  of  duty,  the  love  of  man  in  the  Saviour, 
make  the  strong  music  which  his  soul  tries  to  catch. 

And  then  another  result  of  this  conception  of 
preaching  as  the  telling  of  a  message  is  that  it  puts 
us  into  right  relations  with  all  historic  Christianity. 
The  message  never  can  belold  as  if  we  were  the  first 
to  tell  it.  It  is  the  same  message  which  the  Church 
has  told  in  all  the  ages.  He  who  tells  it  to-day  is 
backed  by  all  the  multitude  who  have  told  it  in  the 
past.  He  is  companied  by  all  those  who  are  telling 
it  now.  The  message  is  his  witness ;  but  a  part  of  the 
assurance  with  whicii  he  has  received  it,  comes  from 
the  fact  of  its  being  the  identical  message  which  lias 
corae  down  from  the  beginning.  Men  find  on  both 
sides  how  difficult  it  is  to  jireserve  the  true  poi.se 
and  proportion  between  the  corporate  and  tlie  indi- 
vidual conceptions  of  the  Christian  life.  But  all  will 
1  own  to-day  the  need  of  both.  The  identity  of  tlio 
'  Church  in  all  times  consists  in  the  identity  of  the 
meosage  which  slie  has  always  had  to  carry  from  her 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.       19 

Lord  to  men.  All  outward  utterances  of  tlie  perpet- 
ual identity  of  tlie  Church  are  valuable  only  as  they 
assert  this  real  identity.  There  is  the  real  meaning 
of  the  perpetuation  of  old  ceremonies,  the  use  of  an- 
cient liturgies,  and  the  clinging  to  what  seem  to  be 
apostolic  types  of  government.  -  The  heretic  in  hU 
times  has  been  not  the  errorist  as  such,  but  the  self- 
willed  man,  whether  his  judgments  were  right  or 
wrong.  "A  man  maybe  a  heretic  in  the  truth," says 
Milton.  He  is  the  man  who,  taking  his  ideas  not  as 
a  message  from  God,  but  as  his  own  discoveries,  has 
cut  himself  off  from  the  message-bearing  Church  of  all 
the  ages.  I  am  sure  that  the  more  fully  you  come  to 
count  your  preaching  the  telling  of  a  message,  the 
more  valuable  and  real  the  Church  will  become  to 
you,  the  more  true  will  seem  to  you  your  brother- 
hood with  all  messengers  of  that  same  message  in  all 
strange  dresses  and  in  all  strange  tongues.  y^ 

I  should  like  to  mention,  with  reference  to  the 
Truth  which  the  preacher  has  to  preach,  two  ten- 
dencies which  I  am  sure  that  you  will  recognize  as 
very  characteristic  of  our  time.  One  is  the  tendency 
of  cinticism,  and  the  other  is  the  tendency  of  mech- 
anism. Both  tendencies  are  bad.  By  the  tendency  of 
criticism  I  mean  the  disposition  that  prevails  every- 
where to  deal  with  things  from  outside,  discussing 
iheir  relations,  examining  their  nature,  and  not  put- 
ting ourselves  into  their  power.     Preaching  in  every 


i^  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

age  follows,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  changes  which 
come  to  all  literature  and  life.  The  age  in  which  we 
live  is  strangely  fond  of  criticism.  It  takes  all  things 
to  pieces  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  examining  their 
nature.  It  studies  forces,  not  in  order  to  obev  them, 
but  in  order  to  understand  them.  It  talks  about 
things  for  the  pure  pleasure  of  discussion.  Much  of 
the  poetry  and  prose  about  nature  and  her  wonders, 
much  of  the  investigation  of  the  country's  genius  and 
institutions,  much  of  the  subtle  analysis  of  human 
nature  is  of  this  sort.  It  is  all  good  ;  but  it  is  some- 
thing distinct  from  the  cordial  sympathy  by  which 
one  becomes  a  willing  servant  of  any  of  these  powers, 
a  real  lover  of  nature,  or  a  faithful  citizen,  or  a  true 
friend.  Now  it  would  be  strange  if  this  critical  ten- 
dency did  not  take  possession  of  the  preaching  of  the 
day.  And  it  does.  The  disposition  to  watch  ideas  in 
their  working,  and  to  talk  about  their  relations  and 
their  influence  on  one  another,  simply  as  problems,  in 
which  the  mind  may  find  pleasure  without  any  real 
entrance  of  the  soul  into  the  ideas  themselves,  this, 
which  is  the  critical  tendency,  invades  the  pulpit,  and 
the  result  is  an  immense  amount  of  preaching  which 
must  be  called  preaciiing  about  Christ  as  distinct  from 
preaching  Christ.  There  are  many  preachers  who 
«eein  to  do  nothing  else,  always  discussing  Christian- 
ity as  a  problem  instead  of  announcing  Christianity 
as  a  message,  and  proclaiming  Christ  as  a  Saviour, 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PRE  A  CHrNG.       21 

I  do  not  undervalue  their  discussions.  But  I  think 
we  ought  always  to  feel  that  such  discussions  are  not 
the  type  or  ideal  of  preaching.  They  may  be  neces- 
sities of  the  time,  but  they  are  not  the  work  which 
the  great  Apostolic  preachers  did,  or  which  the  true 
preacher  will  always  most  desire.  Definers  and  de- 
fenders of  the  faith  are  always  needed,  but  it  is  bad 
for  a  church,  when  its  ministers  count  it  their  true 
work  to  define  and  defend  the  faitli  rather  than  to 
preach  the  Gospel.  Beware  of  the  tendency  to  preach 
about  Christianity,  and  try  to  preach  Christ.  To  dis- 
cuss the  relations  of  Christianity  and  Science,  Chris- 
tianity and  Society,  Christianity  and  Politics,  is  good. 
To  set  Christ  forth  to  men  so  that  they  shall  know 
Him,  and  in  gratitude  and  love  become  His,  that  is 
far  better.  It  is  good  to  be  a  Herschel  who  describes 
the  sun  ;  but  it  is  better  to  be  a  Prometheus  who 
brings  the  sun's  fire  to  the  earth. 

I  called  the  other  tendency  the  tendency  of  mech- 
anism. It  is  the  disposition  of  the  preacher  to  forget 
that  the_Gpspel  of  Christ  is  primarily  addressed  to 
individuals.  andJJiat  its  u-lti^aate  purpose  is  the  salva- 
tion of  multitudes  of  men.  Between  the  time  when 
it  first  speaks  to  a  man's  soul,  and  the  time  when 
that  man's  soul  is  gathered  into  heaven,  with  the 
whole  host  of  the  redeemed,  the  Gospel  uses  a  great 
aiany  machineries  which  are  more  or  less  impe-rsonal. 
The  Cluirch,  with  all  its  instrumentalities,  conies  in. 


22  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

The  preacher  works  by  them.  But  if  the  preachoi 
ever  for  a  moment  counts  them  the  purpose  of  hia 
working,  if  he  takes  his  eye  off  the  single  soul  as  the 
prize  he  is  to  win,  he  falls  from  his  highest  function 
and  loses  his  best  power.  All  successful  preaching, 
I  more  and  more  believe,  talks  to  indiviSuals.  The 
Church  is  for  the  soul.  I  am  not  thinkins:  of  the  fault 
or  danger  of  any  one  body  of  Christians  alone  when 
I  say  this,  not  of  my  own  or  any  other.  The  ten- 
dency to  work  for  the  means  instead  of  for  the  end  is 
everywhere.  And,  my  friends,  learn  tliis  at  the  be- 
ginning of  your  ministry,  that  just  as  surely  as  you 
think  that  any  kind  of  fault  or  danger  belongs  wholly 
to  another  system  than  your  own,  and  that  you  are 
not  exposed  to  it,  just  so  surely  you  will  reproduce 
that  fault  or  danger  in  some  form  in  your  own  life. 
This  surely  is  a  good  rule :  whenever  you  see  a  fault 
in  any  other  man,  or  any  other  church,  look  for  it 
in  yourself  and  in  your  own  church.  Where  is  the 
church  which  is  not  liable  to  value  its  machineries 
above  its  purposes,  whose  ministers  are  not  tempted 
to  preach  for  the  denomination  and  its  precious  pe- 
culiarities, instead  of  for  men  and  for  their  precious 
Bouls  ?  Let  your  preaching  be  to  individuals,  and  to 
the  Church  always  as  living  for  and  made  up  of  indi- 
viduals. 

Of  the  second  element  ir    preaching,  namely,  tho 


THE   TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.       23 

preacher's  personality,  there  will  be  a  great  deal  to 
say,  especially  in  the  next  lecture.  But  there  are 
two  or  three  fundamental  things  which  I  wish  to  say 
to-day. 

The  first  is  this,  that  the  principle  of  personality 
once  admitted  involves  the  individuality  of  every 
preacher.  The  same  considerations  which  make  it 
good  that  the  Gospel  should  not  be  written  on  the 
sky,  or  committed  merely  to  an  almost  impersonal 
book,  make  it  also  most  desirable  that  every  preacher 
should  utter  the  truth  in  his  own  way,  and  according 
to  his  own  nature.  It  must  come  not  only  through 
man  but  through  men.  If  you  monotonize  men  you 
lose  their  human  power  to  a  large  degree.  If  you 
could  make  all  men  think  alike  it  would  be  very 
much  as  if  no  man  thought  at  all,  as  when  the  whole 
earth  moves  together  with  all  that  is  upon  it,  every- 
thing seems  still.  Now  the  deep  sense  of  the  solem- 
nity of  the  minister's  work  has  often  a  tendency  to 
repress  the  free  individuality  of  the  preacher  and  his 
tolerance  of  other  preachers'  individualities.  His 
own  way  of  doing  his  work  is  with  him  a  matter  of 
conscience,  not  of  taste,  and  the  conscience  when  it  is 
thoroughly  awake  is  more  intolerant  than  the  taste  is. 
Or,  working  just  the  other  way,  his  conscience  tells 
him  that  it  is  not  for  him  to  let  his  personal  peculiar- 
ities intrude  in  such  a  solemn  work,  and  so  he  tries  to 
oind  himself  to  the  ways  of  working  which  the  most 


24  LECTURES   ON  P  UK  ACHING. 

Buccessful  preachers  of  tlie  Word  have  followed.  1 
have  seen  both  these  kinds  of  ministers :  those  whoso 
consciences  made  them  obstinate,  and  those  whose 
consciences  made  them  pliable ;  those  whose  con- 
sciences hardened  them  to  steel  or  softened  them  to 
wax.  However  it  comes  about,  there  is  an  unmis- 
takable tendency  to  the  repression  of  the  individuality 
of  the  preacher.  It  is  seen  in  little  things:  in  the  uni- 
form which  preachers  wear,  and  the  disposition  to  a 
uniformity  of  language.  It  is  seen  in  great  things :  in 
the  disposition  which  all  ages  have  witnessed  to  draw 
a  line  of  orthodoxy  inside  the  lines  of  truth.  Wisely 
and  soberly  let  us  set  ourselves  against  this  influence. 
The  God  who  sent  men  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  His 
Son  in  their  humanity,  sent  each  man  distinctively 
to  preach  it  in  his  humanity.  Be  yourself  by  all 
means,  but  let  that  good  result  come  not  by  culti- 
vating merely  superficial  peculiarities  and  oddities. 
Let  it  be  by  winning  a  true  self  full  of  your  own 
faith  and  your  own  love.  The  deep  originality  is 
noble,  but  the  surface  originality  is  miserable.  It  is 
8o  easy  to  be  a  John  the  Baptist,  as  far  as  the  desert 
Hud  camel's  hair  and  locusts  and  wild  honey  go.  But 
the  devoted  heart  to  speak  from,  and  the  fiery  words 
to  speak,  are  other  things. 

Again,  we  never  can  forget  in  thinking  of  the 
preacher's  personality  that  he  is  one  who  lives  in  con- 
atant  familiaritv  with   llioujxhts  and  words   which   fc 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.       2d 

Dther  men  are  occasional  and  rare,  and  which  pre- 
serve their  sacredness  mainly  by  their  rarity.  That 
fact  must  always  come  in  when  we  try  to  estimate 
the  influences  of  a  preacher's  life.  What  will  the 
power  of  that  fact  be  ?  I  am  sure  that  often  it 
weakens  the  minister.  I  am  sure  that  many  men 
w^ho,  if  they  came  to  preach  once  in  a  great  while  in 
the  midst  of  other  occupations,  would  preach  with 
feality  and  fire,  are  deadened  to  their  sacred  work  by 
their  constant  intercourse  with  sacred  things.  Their 
eonstant  dealing  with  the  truth  makes  them  less 
powerful  to  bear  the  truth  to  others,  as  a  pipe 
through  which  the  water  always  flows  collects  its 
sediment,  and  is  less  fit  to  let  more  water  through. 
And  besides  this,  it  ministers  to  self-deception  and  to 
an  exaggeration  or  distortion  of  our  own  history. 
The  man  who  constantly  talks  of  certain  experiences, 
and  urges  other  men  to  enter  into  them,  must  come 
in  time,  by  very  force  of  describing  those  experiences, 
to  think  that  he  has  undergone  them.  You  beg  men 
to  repent,  and  you  grow  so  familiar  with  the  whole 
theory  of  repentance  that  it  is  hard  for  you  to  know 
that  you  yourself  have  not  repented.  You  exhort  to 
patience  till  you  have  no  eyes  or  ears  for  your  own 
impatience.  It  is  the  way  in  (vhich  the  man  who 
starts  the  trains  at  the  railroad  station  must  come  in 
time  to  feel  as  if  he  himself  had  been  to  all  the  towns 
4long   the   road  whose   names   ho   has    always  been 


26  LECTURES   OX  PRE  ACHING. 

Bhouting  in  tlie  passengers'  ears,  and  to  which  he  ha8 
for  years  sold  them  their  tickets,  when  perhaps  he  has 
not  left  his  own  little  way-station  all  the  time.  I 
know  that  all  this  is  so,  and  yet  certainly  the  fault  is 
in  the  man  not  in  the  ti-uth.  The  remedy  certainly 
is  not  to  make  the  truth  less  familiar.  There  is  a 
truer  relation  to  preaching,  in  which  the  constancy  of 
it  shall  help  instead  of  harming  the  reality  and  ear- 
nestness with  which  you  do  it.  The  more  that  you 
urge  other  people  to  holiness  the  more  intense  may 
be  the  hungering  and  thirsting  after  holiness  in  your 
own  heart.  Familiarity  does  not  breed  contempt 
except  of  contemptible  things  or  in  contemptible 
people.  The  adage,  that  no  man  is  a  hero  to  his 
valet  de  chamhre^  is  sufficiently  answered  by  saying 
that  it  is  only  to  a  valet  de  chamln'e  that  a  trul^ 
gi-eat  man  is  unheroic.  You  must  get  the  impulse, 
the  delight,  and  the  growing  sacredness  of  your  life 
out  of  your  familiar  work.  You  are  lost  as  a 
preacher  if  its  familiarity  deadens  and  encrusts,  in- 
Btead  of  vitalizing  and  opening  your  powers.  And  it 
will  all  depend  upon  whether  you  do  your  work  for 
\our  Master  and  His  people  or  for  yourself.  The 
last  kind  of  labor  slowly  kills,  the  first  gives  life  more 
and  more. 

The  real  i)rej)aration  of  the  preacher's  personality 
for  its  transmissive  work  comes  by  the  opening  of 
his  life  on  both  sides,  towards  the  truth  of  God  and 


2 HE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.       27 

towards  the  iieeds  of  man.  To  apprehend  in  all 
their  intensity  the  wantTan^  woes  of  men,  to  see  the 
problems  and  dangers  of  this  life,  then  to  know  all 
through  us  that  nothing  but  Christ  and  His  Redemp- 
tion can  thoroughly  satisfy  these  wants,  that  is  what 
makes  a  man  a  preacher.  Alas  for  him  who  is  only 
open  on  the  manward  side,  who  only  knows  how  mis- 
erable and  wicked  man  is,  but  has  no  power  of  God 
to  bring  to  him.  He  lays  a  kind  but  helpless  hand 
upon  the  wound.  He  tries  to  relieve  it  with  his 
sympathy  and  liis  philosophy.  He  is  the  source  of 
all  he  says.  There  is  no  God  behind  him.  He  is  no 
preacher.  The  preacher's  instinct  is  that  which  feels 
instantly  how  Christ  and  human  need  belong  together, 
neither  thinks  Christ  too  far  off  for  the  need,  nor  the 
need  too  insignificant  for  Clirist.  Never  be  afraid  to 
bring  the  transcendent  mysteries  of  our  faith,  Christ's 
life  and  death  and  resurrection,  to  the  help  of  the 
humblest  and  commonest  of  human  wants.  There  is 
a  sort  of  preaching  which  keeps  them  for  the  great 
emergencies,  and  soothes  the  common  sorrows  and  re- 
bukes the  common  sins  with  lower  considerations  of 
economy.  Such  preaching  fails.  It  neither  appeals 
to  the  lower  nor  to  the  higher  perceptions  of  man- 
kind. It  is  useful  neither  as  a  law  nor  as  a  gospel. 
It  is  hke  a  river  that  is  frozen  too  hard  to  be  navi- 
gable but  not  hard  enough  to  bear.  Never  ft>ar,  as 
you  preach,   to  bring  thi-   sublimest  motive  to  the 


28  LECrURES   ON  PRE  ACHING. 

Btnallest  duty,  and  the  most  infinite  comfort  to  tlie 
smallest  trouble.  They  will  prove  that  they  belong 
there  if  only  the  duty  and  trouble  are  real  and  yon 
have  read  them  thoroughly  aright. 

These  are  the  elements  of  preaching,  then,  —  Truth 
and  Personality.  The  truth  is  in  itself  a  fixed  and 
stable  element;  the  personality  is  a  varying  and 
growing  clement.  In  the  union  of  the  two  we  have 
the  provision  for  the  combination  of  identity  with 
variety,  of  stability  with  growth,  in  the  preaching  of 
the  Gospel.  The  truth  which  you  are  preaching  is 
the  same  which  your  brother  is  preaching  in  the  next 
pulpit,  or  in  some  missionary  station  on  the  other 
side  of  the  globe.  If  it  were  not,  you  would  get  no 
strength  from  one  another.  You  would  not  stand 
back  to  back  against  the  enemy,  sustaining  one  an- 
other, as  you  do  now.  But  the  way  in  which  you 
preach  the  truth  is  different,  and  each  of  you  i-eaches 
some  ears  that  would  be  deaf  to  the  most  persuasive 
tones  of  the  other.  The  Gospel  you  are  preaching 
now  is  the  same  Gospel  that  you  preached  when  you 
were  first  ordained,  in  that  first  sermon  wliich  it  was 
Ht  once  such  a  terror  and  such  a  joy  to  preach;  but 
if  you  have  been  a  live  man  all  the  time,  you  are  not 
preaching  it  now  Jis  you  did  then.  If  the  truth  had 
changed,  your  life  would  have  lost  its  unity.  The 
truth  has  not  changed,  but  you  have  grown  to  fuller 


'HE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.       29 

unJei standing  of  it,  to  larger  capacity  of  receiving 
and  transmitting  it.     There  is  no  pleasure  in  the 
minister's  life  stronger  than  this,  —  the  perception  of 
identity  and  progress  in  his  preaching  of  the  truth  as 
he  grows  older.     It  is  like  a  man's  pleasure  in  watch- 
ing the  growth  of  his  own  body  or  his  own  mind,  or 
of  a  tree  which  he  has  planted      Always  the  same  it 
is,  yet  always  larger.     It  is  a  common  experience  of 
ministers,  I  suppose,  to  find  that  sentences  in  their 
old  sermons  Avhicli  were  written   years  ago   contain 
meanings  and  views  of  truth  which  they  hold  now 
but  which  they  never  had  thought  of  in  those  early 
days.     The  truth  was  there,  but  tlie  man   had  not 
appropriated  it.     The  truth  has  not  changed,  but  the 
man  is  more  sufficient  for  it.     Here  is  the"  power  by 
which  the  truth  becomes  related  to  each  special  af^e. 
It  is  brought  to  it  through  the  men  of  the  age.     If  a 
preacher  is  not  a  man  of  his  age,  in  sympathy  with 
its  spirit,  his  preaching  fails.     He.  wonders  that  the 
truth    has  grown   so   powerless.     But  it   is   not  the 
truth  that  has  failed.     It  is  the  other  element,  the 
person.     That  is  the  reason  why  sometimes  the  old 
preacher  finds  his  well-known  power  gone,  and  com- 
plains that  while  he  is  still  in  his  vigor  people  are 
looking  to  younger   men  for   the   work  which  they 
iuce  delighted  to  demand  of  him.     There  are  noblo 
examples  on  the  other  side :  old  men  with  a  person- 
ality as  vitally  sympathetic  with  the  changing  age  as 


80  LECTURES   ON   riiEACIIING. 

the  truth  which  they  preach  is  true  to  the  Weird  ol 
God.  They  have  a  power  which  no  young  man  can 
begin  to  wield,  and  the  world  owns  it  willingly.  Peo- 
ple would  rather  see  old  men  than  ycung  men  in 
their  pulpits,  if  only  the  old  men  briny  them  both 
elements  of  preaching,  a  faith  that  is  eternally  true, 
and  a  person  that  is  in  quick  and  ready  sympathy 
with  their  present  life.  If  they  can  have  but  one, 
they  are  apt  to  choose  the  latter  ;  but  what  they 
really  want  is  both,  and  the  noblest  ministries  in  the 
Church  are  those  of  old  men  who  have  kept  the  fresh- 
ness of  their  youth. 

It  is  in  the  poise  and  proportion  of  these  two  ele« 
ments  of  preaching  that  we  secure  the  true  relation 
between  independence  and  adaptation  in  the  preach- 
er's character.  The  desire  to  meet  the  needs  of  the 
p<!ople  to  whom  we  preach  may  easily  become  ser- 
vility. Many  a  man  has  lost  his  manliness  and  won 
people's  contempt  in  a  truly  earnest  desire  to  win 
tlieir  hearts  for  his  great  message.  Here  is  where  the 
stable  and  unchanging  element  of  our  work  comes  in. 
There  is  something  that  you  owe  to  the  truth  and 
to  yourself  as  its  preacher.  There  is  a  line  beyond 
which  adaptation  becomes  feebleness.  There  are  some 
things  which  St.  Paul  will  not  become  to  any  man. 
Nothing  but  this  sense  of  the  unchanging  demands  of 
the  truth  which  we  are  sent  to  preach  (nin  keep  us 
from  giving  our  ]»cople  what  they  want,  instead  of 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.       31 

what  they  need.  Keep  a  clear  sense  of  wliat  yoin 
truth  requires  of  you.  Count  it  unworthy  of  your- 
self as  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  to  comfort  any  sorrow 
with  less  than  the  Gospel's  whole  comfortableness,  or 
to  bid  any  soul  be  perfectly  happy  in  anything  less 
than  the  highest  spiritual  joy.  The  saddest  moments 
in  every  preacher's  life,  I  think,  are  those  in  which 
he  goes  away  from  his  pulpit  conscious  that  he  has 
given  the  people,  not  the  highest  that  he  knew  how 
to  give,  but  only  the  highest  that  they  knew  how  to 
ask.  He  has  satisfied  them,  and  he  is  thoroughly 
discontented  with  himself.  When  a  friend  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great  had  asked  of  him  ten  talents,  he  ten- 
dered to  him  fifty,  and  when  reply  was  made  tluit 
ten  were  sufficient,  "  True,"  said  he,  "  ten  are  sut- 
ficient  for  you  to  take,  but  not  for  me  to  give." 

If  it  is  the  decay  of  the  personal  element  that 
weakens  the  ministry  of  some  old  men,  I  think  it  is 
the  slighting  of  the  element  of  absolute  truth  that 
degrades  the  work  of  preaching  in  many  young  men's 
eyes,  and  keeps  such  numbers  of  them,  who  oiight  to 
be  there,  from  its  sacred  duties.  The  prevalence  of 
doubt  about  all  truth,  and  to  some  extent  also  the 
general  eagerness  of  preachers  to  find  out  and  meet 
the  people's  desires  and  demands,  these  two  .-causes 
together  have  created  the  impression  that  the  minis- 
ky  had  no  certain  purposes  or  definite  message,  that 
the   preacher  was  a  promiscuous  caterer  for  men'a 


82  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

whims,  wishing  thein  well,  inspired  by  a  certain  gen- 
eral benevolence,  but  in  no  sense  a  prophet  uttering 
positive  truth  to  them  which  they  did  not  know  be- 
fore, uttering  it  whether  they  liked  it  or  hated  it. 
Is  not  that  the  impression  which  many  young  men 
have  of  the  ministry?  Is  it  not  natural  that  with 
that  impression  they  should  seek  some  other  way  to 
help  their  fellow-men  ?  And  is  there  not  very  much 
indeed  in  the  way  in  which  preachers  do  their  work 
to  give  such  an  impression  ?  Everywhere,  for  tho 
strengthening  of  the  weak  preacher,  tlie  enlivening 
of  the  dull  preacher,  the  sobering  of  the  flippant 
preacher,  the  freshening  of  the  old  preacher,  the  ma- 
turing of  the  young  preacher,  what  we  need  is  the 
just  poise  and  proportion  of  these  two  elements  of  the 
preacher's  work,  the  truth  he  has  to  tell  and  the  per- 
sonality through  which  he  has  to  tell  it. 

The  purpose  of  preaching  must  always  be  the  first 
condition  that  decrees  its  character.  The  final  cause 
:s  that  which  really  shapes  everything's  life.  And 
what  is  preaching-for?  The  answer  comes  without 
.'lositation.  It  is  for  men's  salvation.  But  the  idea 
itf  what  salvation  is  has  never  been  entirely  uniform 
M'  certain  ;  and  all  through  the  history  of  preaching 
we  can  see  that  the  character  of  preaching  varie(l 
•jontinually,  rose  or  fell,  enlarged  or  narrowed,  with 
the  constant  variation  of  m<'n's  ideas  as  to  what  ft 


THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  IN  PREACHING.       33 

was  to  be  bavecl.  If  salvation  was  something  here 
and  now,  preaching  became  a  direct  appeal  to  man's 
present  life.  If  salvation  was  something  future  and 
far  away,  preaching  died  into  remote  whispers  and 
only  made  itself  graphic  and  forcible  by  the  vivid 
pictures  of  torture  addressed  to  the  senses  whose  pain 
men  most  easily  understand.  If  to  be  saved  was  to 
be  saved  from  sin,  preaching  became  spiritual.  If  to 
be  saved  was  to  be  saved  from  punishment,  preach- 
ing became  forensic  and  economical.  If  salvation  was 
the  elevation  of  society,  preaching  became  a  lecture 
upon  social  science.  The  first  thing  for  you  to  do  is 
to  see  clearly  what  you  are  going  to  preach  for,  what 
you  mean  to  try  to  save  men  from.  By  your  con- 
viction about  that,  the  whole  quality  of  your  minis- 
try will  be  decided.  To  the  absence  of  any  clear 
answer  to  that  question,  to  the  entire  vagueness  as  to 
what  men's  danger  is,  we  owe  the  vagueness  with 
which  so  many  of  our  preachers  preach. 

The  world  has  not  heard  its  best  preaching  yet. 
If  there  is  more  of  God's  truth  for  men  to  know, 
and  if  it  is  possible  for  the  men  who  utter  it  to  be- 
come more  pure  and  godl}^,  then,  with  both  of  its 
elements  more  complete  than  they  have  ever  been  be- 
fore, preaching  must  some  day  be  a  completer  power. 
But  that  better  preaching  will  not  come  by  any  sud- 
ien  le«p  of  inspiration.     As  the  preaching  of  the 


34  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

present  came  from  the  preaching  of  the  past,  so  the 
preaching  that  Is  to  be  will  come  from  the  preaching 
that  is  now.  Tf  we  preach  as  honestly,  as  intelli- 
gently, and  as  spiritually  as  we  can,  we  shall  not 
merely  do  good  in  our  own  day,  but  help  in  some 
real  though  unrecorded  way  the  future  triumphs  of 
the  work  we  love. 


THE    PREACHER    HIMSELF. 


"1% /TY  last  lecture  indicated  very  cleai'ly  the  iiiipor- 
■^-'-  tance  which  I  tliiiik  belongs  to  the  preacher's 
person  in  the  work  to  which  he  is  ordained.  In 
my  second  and  third  lectures  I  want  to  dwell  upon 
this  subject  and  consider  distinctively  the  preacher. 
After  that  we  will  look  at  the  sermon.  And  in  con- 
sidering the  preacher,  we  may  think  of  him  first  in 
himself  and  then  in  relation  to  his  work.  It  is  not 
a  distinction  that  can  be  accurately  and  constantly 
maintained.  The  two  views  run  together.  But 
it  will  help  me  in  making  an  arrangement  of  what 
I  have  to  .say;  and  if  we  do  not  insist  on  it  too 
strongly,  it  will  aid  our  thoughts.  To-day  I  take 
the  first  of  these  two  topics,  and  shall  speak  of  the 
preacher's  personal  character,  the  preacher  in  himself. 

■  Let  us  ask,  then,  first,  What  sort  of  man  may  be  a 
ffiinister  ?  It  would  be  good  for  the  Church  if  it  were 
a  more  common  question.  Partly  because  the  motives 
which  lead  a  young  man  to  the  ministry  are  so  per- 
gonal and  spiritual,  partly  because  of  our  sense  of  the 


aO  LECTURES   ON  PREACIllSd. 

magnitude  and  privilege  of  the  work,  which  makes 
us  fear  to  be  the  means  of  exchiding  any  worthy  man 
from  it,  partly  because,  at  present,  while  the  harvest 
is  80  plenteous  the  laborers  are  so  very  few,  —  foi 
these  and  other  reasons,  there  is  far  too  little  discrim- 
ination in  the  selection  of  men  who  are  to  preach, 
and  many  men  find  their  way  into  the  preacher's 
office  who  discover  only  too  late  that  it  is  not  their 
place.  When  our  Lord  selected  those  to  whom  He 
was  to  commit  His  gospel,  we  are  impressed  with  the 
deliberation  and  solemnity  of  the  act :  "'  And  it  came 
to  pass  in  these  daj^s  that  He  went  out  into  a  mount- 
ain to  pray,  and  continued  all  night  in  prayer  to 
God.  And  when  it  was  day.  He  called  unto  Him  His 
disciples  and  of  them  He  chose  twelve  whom  also  He 
named  apostles."  There  has  certainly  grown  up  in 
the  Church  a  strong  misgiving  as  to  the  whole  policy 
of  charitable  people  and  benevolent  societies  who, 
with  their  lavish  offers  of  help,  gather  into  the  min- 
istry, along  with  many  noble,  faithful  men,  a  multi- 
tude who,  amiable  and  pious  as  they  may  be,  are  of 
tlie  kind  who  make  no  place  in  life  for  themselves, 
but  wait  till  some  one  kindly  makes  one  for  tli<'in 
and  drops  them  into  it.  I  am  convinced  that  the 
ministry  can  never  have  its  true  dignity  or  power  till 
it  is  cut  aloof  from  mendicancy,  —  till  young  men 
whose  hearts  are  set  on  preaching  make  their  way  to 
th<'  pulpit  by  the  same  energy  and  through  the  same 


THE  PREACHER   HIM  SELL.  37 

iifficulties  which  mee1^^oimtless_joung  men  on  their 
way  to  business  and  the  bar.  We  beheve  the  influ- 
ence which  brings  men  to  the  pulpit  to  be  a  far  holier 
one.  It  ought,  then,  to  be  a  far  stronger  one  ;  and 
yet  we  trust  less  to  its  power  than  we  do  to  the 
power  of  ambition  and  self-interest.  It  is  a  part 
of  the  whole  unmanly  way  of  treating  ministers,  of 
which  there  will  be  more  to  say. 

It  is  not  easy  to  describe,  with  our  large  views  of 
personal  liberty  and  personal  rights,  what  methods 
of  inspection  and  authentication  it  may  be  well  to 
use  on  the  admission  of  preacliers  to  their  sacred 
work  ;  but  what  we  most  of  all  need  is  a  clearer  un- 
derstanding and  a  fuller  statement  of  what  are  the 
true  conditions  of  a  minister's  success,  and  so  what 
qualities  we  have  a  right  to  ask  of  ourselves  and  of 
one  another  before  we  can  feel  that  the  .true  call  to 
the  ministry  has  been  established.  We  must  not 
draw  the  line  too  narrowly.  There  is  nothing  more 
Btriking  about  the  ministry  than  the  way  in  which 
very  OiDposite  men  do  equally  effective  work.  You 
look  at  some  great  preacher,  and  you  say,  "•  There  is 
the  type.  He  who  is  like  that  can  preach,"  and  just 
as  your  sii|^ig  conclusion  is  all  made,  some  other  voice 
rings  out  from  a  neighboring  pulpit,  and  the^same 
power  of  God  reaches  the  hearts  of  men  in  a  totally 
new  way,  and  your  neat  conclusion  cracks  and  breaks. 
Spurgeon  preaches  at  his  Surrey  Tabernacle,  and  Lid- 


38  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

don  preaches  at  St.  Paul's,  and  both  are  great  preach- 
ers, and  yet  no  two  men  could  be  more  entirely  un- 
like. It  must  be  so.  If  the  preacher  is  after  all  only 
the  representative  man,  the  representative  Christian 
doing  in  special  ways  and  with  a  special  ordination 
that  which  all  men  ought  to  be  doing  for  Christ  and 
fellow-man,  then  there  ought  to  be  as  many  kinds  of 
preachers  as  there  are  kinds  of  Christians  ;  and  there 
ax'e  as  many  kinds  of  Christians  as  there  are  kinds  of 
men. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  only  in  the  largest  way 
can  the  necessary  qualities  of  the  preacher  be  enu- 
merated. With  this  provision  such  an  enumeration 
may  be  attempted. 

I  must  not  dwell  upon  the  first  of  all  the  necessary 
qualities,  and  yet  there  is  not  a  moment's  doubt  that 
it  does  stand  first  of  all.  It  is  personal  piety,  a  deep 
possession  in  one's  own  soul  of  the  faith  and  hope 
and  resolution  which  he  is  to  offer  to  his  fellow-men 
for  their  new  life.  Nothing  but  fire  kindles  fire.  To 
know  in  one's  whole  nature  what  it  is  to  live  by 
Christ;  to  be  His,  not  our  own;  to  be  so  occupied 
with  gratitude  for  what  He  did  for  us  and  for  what 
He  continually  is  to  us  that  His  will  and  His  glow 
Bhall  be  the  sole  desires  of  our  life,  I  wish  that  I 
could  put  in  some  words  of  new  and  overwhelming 
force  the  old  accepted  certainty  that  that  is  the  first 
necessity  of  the  preacher,  that  to  preach  without  that 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  39 

is  weary  and  unsatisfying  and  unprofitable  work,  that 
to  preach  with  that  is  a  perpetual  privilege  and 
joy. 

And  next  to  this  I  mention  what  we  may  call  men- 
tal and  spiritual  unselfishness.  I  do  not  speak  so 
much  of  a  moral  as  of  an  intellectual  quality.  I 
mean  that  kind  of  mind  which  always  conceives  of 
truth  with  reference  to  its  communication  and  re- 
ceives any  spiritual  blessing  as  a  trust  for  others. 
Both  of  these  are  capable  of  being  cultivated,  but  I 
hold  that  there  is  a  natural  difference  between  men 
in  this  respect.  Some  men  by  nature  receive  truth 
abstractly.  They  follow  it  into  its  developments. 
They  fathom  its  depths.  But  tbey  never  think  of 
sending  it  abroad.  They  are  so  enwrapt  in  seeing 
what  it  is  that  they  never  care  to  test  what  it  can  do. 
Other  men  necessarily  think  in  relation  to  other  mep 
and  their  first  impulse  with  every  new  truth  is  to 
give  it  its  full  range  of  power.  Their  love  for  truth 
is  always  complemented  by  a  love  for  man.  They 
are  two  clearly  different  temperaments.  One  of  them 
does  not  and  the  other  does  make  the  preacher. 

Again,  hopefulness  is  a  necessary  quality  of  the 
true  preacher's  nature.  You  know  how  out  of  every 
complicated  condition  of  affairs  one  man  natvirally 
appropriates  all  the  elements  of  hope,  while  another 
hivariably  gathers  up  all  that  tends  to  despair.  The 
latter  kind  of  man  may  have  his  uses.     There  are 


i- 


*0  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

tasks  and  times  for  which  no  prophet  but  Cassandi-a 
is  appropriate.  There  were  duties  laid  on  some  of 
the  old  Hebrew  prophets  which  perhaps  they  might 
have  done  with  hearts  wholly  destitute  of  any  ray  of 
light.  But  such  a  temper  is  entirely  out  of  keeping 
with  the  Christian  gospel.  The  preacher  may  some- 
times denounce,  rebuke,  and  terrify.  When  he  doef^ 
Ihut,  he  is  not  distinctively  the  preacher  of  Christian- 
ity. If  his  nature  is  such  that  he  must  dread  and  fear 
continually,  he  was  not  made  to  preach  the  gospel. 

If  I  go  on  and  mention  a  certain  physical  condition 
as  essential  to  the  preacher,  I  do  so  on  very  serious 
grounds.  I  am  impressed  with  what  seems  to  rae  the 
frivolous  and  insufficient  way  in  which  the  health  of 
the  preacher  is  often  treated.  It  is  not  siuiply  that 
the  sick  minister  is  always  hampered  and  restrained. 
It  is  not  merely  that  the  truth  he  has  within  him 
finds  imperfect  utterance.  It  is  that  the  preacher's 
work  is  the  most  largely  human  of  all  occupations. 
It  brings  a  man  into  more  multiplied  relations  with 
his  fellow-man  than  any  other  work.  It  is  not  the 
doing  of  certain  specified  duties.  You  will  be  sadly 
mistaken  if  you  tliink  it  is,  and  try  to  set  down  in 
your  contract  with  your  parish  just  what  you  are  to 
do,  and  where  your  duties  are  to  stop.  It  is  the  man 
offered  as  a  mediimi  through  whom  God's  influence 
may  reach  his  fellow-men.  Such  an  offering  involves 
tlio  whole  man,  and  the  whole  man  is  body  and  soul 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  41 

together.  Therefore  the  ideal  preacher  brings  the 
perfectly  healthy  body  with  the  perfectly  sound  soul. 
Remember  that  the  care  for  your  health,  the  avoid- 
ance of  nervous  waste,  the  training  of  your  voice,  and 
everything  else  that  you  do  for  your  body  is  not 
merely  an  economy  of  your  organs  that  they  may  be 
fit  for  certain  works ;  it  is  a  part  of  that  total  self- 
consecration  wliich  cannot  be  divided,  and  which  all 
together  makes  you  the  medium  through  which  God 
may  reach  His  children's  lives.  I  cannot  but  think 
that  so  high  a  view  of  the  consecration  of  the  body 
would  convict  many  of  the  reputable  sins  against 
health  in  which  ministers  are  apt  to  live,  and  do  the 
fundamental  good  which  the  tinkering  of  the  body 
by  specifics  for  special  occasions  so  completely  fails 
to  do. 

I  speak  of  only  one  thing  more.  I  do  not  know 
how  to  give  it  a  name,  but  I  do  think  that  in  every 
man  who  preaches  there  should  be  something  of  that 
quality  wliich  we  recognize  in  a  high  degree  in. some 
man  of  whom  we  say,  when  we  see  him  in  the  pulpit, 
that  he  is  a  "  born  preacher."  Call  it  enthusiasm  ;  call 
it  eloquence;  call  it  magnetism  ;._call  it  the  gift  for 
preaching.  It  is  the  quality  that  kindles  at  the  sight 
of  men,  that  feel  a  keen  joy  at  the  meeting  of  truth 
and  the  human  mind,  and  recognizes  how  God  made 
them  for  each  other.  It  is  the  power  by  which  -a 
man  loses  himself  and  becomes  but  the  sympathetic 


■12  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

atmosphere  between  the  truth  on  one  side  of  him  and 
the  man  on  tho  other  side  of  him.  It  is  the  ins|;ini- 
tion,  the  possession,  —  what  I  have  heard  called  the 
"  demon  "  of  preaching.  Something  of  this  quality 
there  must  be  in  every  man  who  really  preached.  He 
who  wholly  lacks  it  cannot  be  a  preacher. 

All  of  these  qualities  which  I  have  thus  enumer- 
ated exist  in  degrees.  All  of  them  are  capable  of 
culture  if  they  exist  at  all.  All  of  them  are  difficult 
to  test  except  by  the  actual  work  of  preaching.  I 
grant,  therefore,  fully,  that  it  is  difficult  to  draw  out 
of  them  a  set  of  tests  which  the  secretary  of  an  educa- 
tion society  can  apply  to  candidates, —  as  a  recruiting 
sergeant  measures  volunteers  around  the  chest,  —  and 
mark  them  as  fit  or  unfit  for  the  ministry.  But  from 
their  enumeration  I  think  still  that  there  does  rise  up 
before  us  a  clear  picture  of  the  man  who  ought  to  be 
H  i)reacher.  Full  of  the  love  of  Christ,  taking  all 
truth  and  blessing  as  a  trust,  in  the  best  sense  didac- 
tic, hopeful,  healthy,  and  counting  health,  as  far  as  it 
is  in  liis  power,  a  part  of  his  self-consecration  ;  will- 
ing, not  simply  as  so  many  men  are,  to  bear  sickness 
for  God's  work,  but  willing  to  preserve  health  for 
God's  work  ;  and  going  to  his  preaching  with  the  en- 
thusiasm that  shows  it  is  what  God  made  him  for. 
The  nearer  you  can  come  to  him,  my  friends,  the  bet* 
ter  preachers  you  will  be,  the  surer  you  may  be  that 
you  have  a  right  to  be  preachers  at  all. 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  4-3 

And  the  next  question  will  be,  When  you  have 
the  light  kind  of  man  to  make  a  preacher  of,  what 
are  the  changes  you  will  want  him  to  undergo  that 
he  may  become  a  preacher.  The  formal  ordination 
which  he  will  meet  by  and  by  will  be  nothing,  of 
course,  unless  it  signifies  some  real  experiences  which 
have  filled  these  years  since  his  soul  heard  what  it 
recognized  as  God's  call  to  the  ministry.  We  may 
set  him  apart  from  other  men  with  what  solemn  cere- 
monies we  may  please,  but  he  will  be  just  like  other 
men  still,  unless  the  power  of  the  w6i*k  to  which  he 
looks  forward  has  entered  into  him  during  his  careful 
]n-eparation  and  made  hiui  different. 

What  does  this  difference  consist  in  ?  What  is  the 
true  preparation  ?  First,  and  most  evident,  there  are 
his  special  studies  which  have  been  filling  him  with 
their  spirit.  Most  men  begin  really  to  study  when 
they  enter  on  the  preparation  for  their  professions. 
Men  whose  college  life,  with  its  general  culture,  has 
been  very  idle,  begin  to  work  when  at  the  door  of 
the  professional  school  the  work  of  their  life  comes 
into  sight  before  them.  It  is  the  wa}'  in  whicli  a  bird 
who  has  been  wheeling  vaguely  hither  and  thither 
sees  at  last  its  home  in  the  distance  and  flies  towards 
it  like  an  arrow.  But  shall  I  say  to  you  how  often  I 
!uive  thought  that  the  very  transcendent  motives  of 
the  young  minister's  stud}'^  have  a  certain  tendency 
lo  bewilder  him  and  make  his  study  less  faithful  than 


44  LECTURES   ON  PREACIIL\(J. 

that  of  men  seeking  other  professions  from  / /v^ei 
motives  ?  The  highest  motive  often  dazzles  before  it 
illuminates.  It  is  one  of  the  ways  m  which  the  light 
within  us  becomes  darkness.  I  never  shall  forg(;t 
my  first  experience  of  a  divinity  school.  I  had  come 
from  a  college  where  men  studied  hard  but  said  noth 
ing  about  faith.  I  had  never  been  at  a  prayer-meei- 
ing  in  my  life.  The  first  place  I  was  taken  to  at  the 
seminary  was  the  prayer-meeting  ;  and  never  shall 
I  lose  the  impression-  of  the  devoutness  with  which 
those  men  praj'ed  and  exhorted  one  another.  Their 
whole  souls  seemed  exalted  and  their  natures  were  on 
fire.  I  sat  bewildered  and  asluimed,  and  went  away 
depressed.  On  the  next  day  I  met  some  of  those 
same  men  at  a  Greek  recitation.  It  would  be  little 
to  say  of  some  of  the  devoutest  of  them  that  they  had 
not  learnt  their  lessons.  Their  whole  way  showed 
that  they  never  learnt  their  lessons  ;  that  they  had 
not  got  hold  of  the  first  principles  of  hard,  faithful, 
conscientious  study.  The  boiler  had  no  connection 
with  the  engine.  The  devotion  did  not  touch  tlie 
work  which  then  and  tlKve  was  the  work  and  the. 
only  work  for  them  to  do.  By  and  by  I  found  some- 
thing of  where  the  steam  did  escape  to.  A  sort  of 
amateur,  premature  preaching  was  much  in  vogue 
among  us.  We  were  in  haste  to  be  at  what  wo 
called  "our  work."  A  feeble  twilight  of  tlie  coining! 
ministry    we   lived    in.     The   people    in    the    neigli- 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  4.1 

Oorliood  dubbed  us  "  parson nettes."  Oh,  my  fellow- 
students,  the  special  study  of  theology  and  all  that 
appertains  to  it,  that  is  what  the  preacher  mu,:t  be 
doing  always  ;  but  he  never  can  do  it  afterward  as 
he  can  in  the  blessed  days  of  quiet  in  Arabi.i,  after 
Christ  has  called  him,  and  before  the  Apostles  lay 
their  hands  upon  him.  In  many  respects  an  ignorant 
clergy,  however  pious  it  may  be,  is  worse  than  none 
at  all.  The  more  the  empty  head  glows  and  burns, 
the  more  hollow  and  thin  and  dry  it  grows.  "  The 
knowledge  of  the  priest,"  said  St.  Francis  de  Sales, 
"  is  the  eighth  sacrament  of  the  Church." 

But  again,  the  minister's  preparation  of  charac- 
ter for  his  work  involves  something  more  intimate 
than  the  accumulation  of  knowledge.  The  knowledge 
which  comes  into  him  meets  in  him  the  intention  of 
preaching,  and,  touched  by  that,  undergoes  a  trans- 
formation. It  is  changed  into  doctrine.  Doctrine 
means  this, — truth  considered  with  reference  to  its 
being  taught.  The  reason  why  many  men  dislike 
the  word  doctrine  is  from  their  dislike  of  the  whole 
notion  of  docility  Avhich  is  attached  to  it.  Just  as 
a  citizen  who  is  preparing  himself  for  public  office 
considers  the  law  and  character  of  the  State  not  ab- 
stractly, but  with  reference  to  their  application  to 
the  people  whom  he  aspires  to  govern  ;  just  as  the 
student  in  a  normal  school  learns  everything  wi-th  an 
inder-consciousness  that  he  is  going  to  teacU   thai 


46  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

same  tiling  some  clay,  influencing  nil  the  methods 
of  Lis  learning  ;  so  the  student  preparing  to  be  a 
prea(;her  cannot  learn  truth  as  the  mere  student  of 
theology  for  its  own  sake  might  do.  He  always  feela 
it  rea<?lung  out  through  him  to  the  people  to  whom 
he  is  some  day  to  carry  it.  He  cannot  get  rid  of 
this  consciousness.  It  influences  all  his  understand- 
ing. We  can  see  that  it  must  have  its  dangers.  It 
will  threaten  the  impartiality  with  which  he  will 
seek  truth.  It  will  tempt  him  to  prefer  those  forma 
of  truth  which  most  easily  lend  themselves  to  didac- 
tic uses,  rather  than  those  which  bring  evidence  of 
being  most  simply  and  purely  true.  That  is  the 
danger  of -all  preachers.  Against  that  danger  the 
man  meaning  to  be  a  preacher  must  be  upon  his 
guard,  but  he  cannot  avoid  the  danger  by  sacrificing 
the  habit  out  of  which  the  danger  springs.  He  must 
receive  truth  as  one  who  is  to  teach  it.  He  cannot, 
he  must  not  study  as  if  the  truth  he  sought  were 
purely  for  his  own  culture  or  enrichment.  And  the  re- 
sult of  such  a  habit,  followed  with  due  guard  against 
its  dangerous  tendencies,  will  be  threefold.  It  will 
bring,  first,  a  deeper  and  more  solemn  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility in  the  search  for  truth  ;  second,  a  desire 
to  find  the  human  side  of  every  truth,  the  point  at 
which  every  speculation  touches  humanity  ;  and  third, 
\  bieadth  which  comes  from  the  constant  prefjence  in 
the  mind  of  the  fact  that  truth  has  various  aspects 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  47 

ftnd  presents  itself  in  many  ways  to  different  people 
according  to  their  needs  and  characters. 

Along  with  this  preparation  for  preaching  goea  . 
another,  I  said  the  man  who  studied  with  the  in- 
tention of  teaching  learned  to  see  and  seize  the 
human  side  of  all  divinity.  It  is  true,  also,  that  he 
learns  to  seize  the  divine  side  of  all  humanity.  The 
sources  from  which  his  preaching  is  to  be  fed  open  on 
every  side  of  him,  I  can  remember  how,  as  I  looked 
forward  to  preaching,  every  book  I  read  and  every 
man  I  talked  with  seemed  to  teem  with  sermons. 
They  all  suggested  something  which  it  seemed  as  if 
the  preacher  of  the  gospel  ought  to  say  to  men.  1 
have  not  found  the  sermons  in  them  all  as  I^-went^ 
on  ;  not,  I  believe,  because  I  was  mistaken  "in  think- 
ing they  were  there,  but  because  I  have  grown  less 
eager  or  keen  in  finding  them,  I  think  there  is  no 
point  in  which  ministers  differ  from  one  another,  and 
in  which  we  all  differ  from  ourselves,  more  than  in 
this,  —  this  open-mindedness  and  power  of  appropri- 
iting  out  of  everything  the  elements  of  true  instruc- 
tion, I  find  two  classes  of  ministers  of  different  hab- 
its in  this  respect.  One  of  them  abjures  everything 
outside  the  narrowest  lines  of  technically  religious 
reading,  has  no  knowledge  of  literature  or  art  or  sci- 
ence. The  other  minister  cultivates  them  all,  but  hia 
life  in  them  is  wholly  outside  of  his  life  as  a  preacher. 
'Je  changes  his  nature  when  he  turns  away  from  his 


48  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

sermon  and  takes  a  volume  from  his  sheiVes.  And 
liis  slielves  themselves  are  divided.  His  secular  and 
his  religious  books  are  ranged  on  opposite  sides  of  his 
study.  There  is  something  better  than  either,  —  a 
true  devotion  to  our  work  which  will  not  let  us  leave 
it  for  a  moment  when  we  are  once  ordained  ;  preach- 
ers once  and  preachers  always;  but  a  conception  of 
our  work  so  large  that  everything  which  a  true  man 
has  any  right  to  do  or  know  ma}'  have  some  help  to 
render  it.  And  this  is  what  you  ought  to  be  laying 
the  foundation  of  in  these  preparatory  days. 

You  will  see  that  I  place  very  great  value  on  this 
preparation,  in  which  a  man  who  is  devout  and  ear- 
nest comes  to  that  fitness  for  his  work  which  St.  Paul 
describes  in  a  word  that  he  uses  twice  to  Timothy,  — 
"•apt  to  teach,"  "  AtSaKTiKo's,"  the  didactic  man.  It 
is  not  something  to  which  one  comes  by  accident  or 
by  any  sudden  burst  of  fiery  zeal.  No  doubt  there  is 
a  power  in  the  untutored  utterance  of  the  new  con- 
vert that  the  ripe  utterances  of  the  educated  preacher 
often  lack  ;  but  it  is  not  so  nuich  a  praise  to  the  new 
?ouvert  that  he  has  that  power  as  it  is  a  shame  to 
the  educnted  preacher  that  lie  does  not  have  it  all 
the  more  richly  in  proportion  to  his  education.  And 
whattiver  else  he  has,  the  man  who  has  leaped  directly 
from  his  own  experience  into  the  pulpit  will  almost 
certainly  be  wanting  in  that  breadth  of  sympathy  and 
understanding  which  comes  in  the  studies  of  the  wait* 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF.  4S 

ing  years.  He  will  know  that  other  men  are  not 
made  just  like  himself,  but  he  will  realize  only  him- 
self, and  preach  to  them  as  if  they  were.  He  will 
be  like  the  man  whom  Archbishop  Whately  tells  of, 
who  was  born  blind  and  afterwards  brought  to  sight. 
"  The  room  he  was  in,  he  said,  he  knew  must  be  part 
of  the  house,  yet  he  could  not  conceive  that  the 
whole  house  could  look  bigger  than  that  one  room." 
So  our  new  Christian  experience  only  slowly  realizes 
that  it  is  but  one  part  of  the  universal  Christian  life. 
Only  as  our  study  carries  us  from  I'oom  to  room  doe?. 
the  whole  house  grow  real  to  us. 

Suppose  our  minister  now  actually  preaching,  and 
next  let  us  ask.  What  are  the  elements  of  personal 
power  which  will  make  him  successful  ?  Remember 
success  in  preaching  is  no  identical,  invariable  thing. 
It  differs  in  all  whom  we  call  successful  men,  and  so 
only  the  broadest  and  most  general  description  can 
be  given  of  the  qualities  that  will  secure  it.  Special 
successes  will  require  special  fitness.  But  he  who 
has  these  qualities  that  I  enumei-ate  is  sure  to  suc- 
ceed somewhere  and  somehow. 

And  first  among  the  elements  of  power  which  make 
">uceess  I  must  jnit  the  supreme  im23ortance  of  char- 
acter, of  personal  uprightness  and  purity  impressing 
th(Mnselves  upon  the  men  who  witness  them.  There  is 
ji  very  striking  remark  in  Lord  Nugent's  "•  Memorials 
of  Jiihn  Hampden,"  Vhere,  speaking  of  the  English 


50  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

Refoni.ation,  he  is  led  to  make  this  general  observa- 
tion :  "  Indeed,  no  hierarchy  and  no  creed  has  evei 
been  overthrown  by  the  people  on  account  only  of 
its  theoretical  dogmas,  so  long  as  the  practice  of  the 
clergy  was  incorrupt  and  conformable  with  their  pro- 
fessions." I  believe  that  that  is  strictly  true.  And  it 
is  always  wonderful  to  see  how  much  stronger  are  the 
antipathies  and  sympathies  which  belong  to  men's 
moral  nature  than  those  which  are  purely  intellectual 
Baxter  tells  us  in  an  interesting  passage  how  in  the 
civil  wars  "  an  abundance  of  the  ignorant  sort  of  tlie 
common  people  which  were  civil  did  flock  in  to  the 
Parliament  and  filled  up  their  armies  merely  because 
they  heard  men  swear  for  the  Common  Prayer  and 
bishops,  and  heard  men  pray  that  were  against  them. 
And  all  the  sober  men  that  I  was  acquainted  with 
who  were  against  the  Parliament  were  wont  to  say, 
'  The  king  hath  the  better  cause,  but  the  Parliament 
the  better  men.'  "  The  better  men  will  always  con- 
quer the  better  cause.  I  suppose  no  cause  could  bo 
so  good  that,  sustained  by  bad  men  and  opposed  by 
any  error  whose  cliamplons  were  men  of  spotless 
lives,  it  would  not  fall.  The  tiiith  must  conquer,  but 
it  must  first  embody  itself  in  goodness.  And  in  tlie 
ministry  it  is  not  merely  by  superficial  prejudice,  but 
by  the  soundest  reason,  that  intellect  and  spiritual- 
ity come  to  be  tested,  not  by  the  views  mon  hold  sc 
much  as   by  tin;  way  in   which  tliey  hold  them,  a:]cl 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  51 

the  sort  of  men  which  their  views  seem  to  make  of 
them.  Whatever  strange  and  scandalous  eccentrici' 
ties  the  ministry  has  sometimes  witnessed,  this  is  cer- 
tainly true,  and  is  always  encouraging,  that  no  man 
permanently  succeeds  in  it  who  cannot  make  men 
believe  that  he  is  pure  and  devoted,  and  the  only 
sure  and  lasting  way  to  make  men  believe  in  one's 
devotion  and  purity  is  to  be  what  one  wishes  to  be 
believed  to  be. 

I  put  next  to  this  fundamental  necessity  of  char- 
acter as  an  element  of  the  preacher's  power  the  free-    -z 
dom  from  self-consciousness.     My  mind  goes  back  to 
a  young  man  wnom  I  knew  in  the  ministry,  who  did 
an  amount  of  work  at  which  men  wondered,  and  who, 
dying  early,  left  a  power  behind  him  whose  influence 
will  go  on  long  after  his  name  is  forgotten  ;  and  the 
great  feature  of  his  character  was  his  forgetfulness  of 
self.     He  had  not  two  questions  to  ask  about  every 
piece   of  work   he   did,  —  first,  "How  shall  I  do   it 
most  effectively  for  others  ?  "  and  second,  "How  shall 
I  do  it  most  creditably  to  myself  ?  "     Only  the  first 
question  ever  seemed  to  come  to  him  ;  and  when  a 
task  was  done  so  that  it  should  most  perfectly  accom- 
plish its  designed  result,  he  left  it  and  went  on  to 
some  new  task.     There  is  wonderful  clearness'  and     _ 
economy  of  force  in  such  simplicity.     No  man  ever/jvZ. 
vet  thought  whether  he  was  preaching  well  without!  ' 
weakening  his  sermon.     I  think  there  are  few  higher; 


V-- 


52  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

or  moie  delightful  moments  in  a  preacher's  life  than 
tluit  which  comes  sometimes  when,  standing  befonj  a 
congregation  and  haunted  by  questionings  about  tlie 
merit  of  your  preaching,  which  you  hate  but  caraiot 
drive  away,  at  last,  suddenly  or  gradually,  you  find 
yourself  taken  into  the  power  of  your  truth,  absorbed 
in  one  sole  desire  to  send  it  into  the  men  whom  you 
are  preaching  to  ;  and  then  every  sail  is  set,  and  your 
sermon  goes  bravely  out  to  sea,  leaving  your  self  high 
^md  dry  upon  the  beach,  where  it  has  been  holding 
your  sermon  stranded.  The  second  question  disap- 
pears out  of  your  work  just  in  proportion  as  the  first 
question  grows  intense.  No  man  is  perfectly  strong 
until  tlie  second  question  has  disappeared  entirely. 
Devotion  is  like  the  candle,  which,  as  Vasari  tells  us, 
Michael  Angelo  used  to  carry  stuck  on  his  forehead 
in  a  pasteboard  cap,  and  which  kept  his  own  shadow 
from  being  cast  upon  his  work  while  he  was  hewing 
out  his  statues. 

The.  next  element  of  a  preacher's  power  is  genuine 
respect  for  the  people  whom  he  preaches  to.  I  should 
not  like  to  say  how  rare  I  think  this  power,  or  how 
plentiful  a  source  of  weakness  I  think  its  absence  is. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  the  genuine  sympathy  of 
wntiment.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  liking  for  cer- 
tain people  in  our  congregations  who  are  interesting 
in  themselves  and  who  are  interested  in  what  inter- 
ests U3.     There  is  a  great  deal  of  the  '.•.•...t    liat  the 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF.  t)h 

clergy  need  the  cooperation  of  the  laity,  and  so  must 
cultivate  their  intimacy.  But  of  a  real  profound  re- 
spect for  the  men  and  women  whom  we  preach  to, 
simply  as  men  and  women,  of  a  deej)  value  for  the 
capacity  that  is  in  them,  a  sense  that  we^are  tjieira 
an^jiot_theyM)urSj  I  think  that  there  is  far  too  little. 
But  without  this  there  can  be  no  real  strength  in  the 
preacher.  We  patronize  the  laity  now  that  our  power 
of  domineering  over  them  has  been  mercifully  taken 
away.  Many  a  time  the  tone  of  a  clergyman  who 
has  talked  of  the  relations  of  the  preacher  and  the 
people,  setting  forth,  with  the  best  will  in  the  world, 
their  mutual  functions,  reminds  one  of  the  sermon  of 
the  mediaeval  preacher,  wlio,  discoursing  on  this  same 
subject,  on  the  necessary  cooperation  of  the  clergy 
and  the  laity,  took  his  text  out  of  Job  i.  14 :  "  The 
oxen  wei'e  ploughing  and.  the  asses  feeding  beside 
them."  There  is  no  good  preaching  in  the  supercil- 
ious preacher.  No  man  preaches  well  who  has  not 
a  strong  and  deep  appreciation  of  humanity.  The 
minister  is  often  called  upon  to  give  up- the  society  of 
the  cultivated  and  learned  to  whom  h,e  would  most  be 
drawn',  but  he  finds  his  compensation  and  strength  in 
knowing  man,  simply  as  man,  and  learning  his  ines- 
timable worth. 

I  think,  again,  that  it  is  essential  to  the  preacher's  /  ^ 
success  that  he  should  thoroughly  enjoy  his  work.     I 
mean  in  the  actual  doing  of  it,  and  not  only  in  its 


\ 


.^4  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

idea.  No  man  to  whom  the  details  of  his  task  are 
repulsive  can  do  his  task  well  constantly,  however 
fuJl  he  may  be  of  its  spirit.  He  may  make  one  bold 
dash  at  it  and  carry  it  over  all  his  disgusts,  but  he 
cannot  work  on  at  it  year  after  year,  day  after  day 
Therefore,  count  it  not  merely  a  perfectly  legitimate 
pleasure,  count  it  an  essential  element  of  your  power, 
if  you  can  feel  a  simple  delight  in  what  you  have  to 
do  as  a  minister,  in  the  fervor  of  writing,  in  the  glow 
of  speaking,  in  standing  before  men  and  moving  them, 
in  contact  with  the  young.  The  more  thoroughly  you 
enjoy  it,  the  better  you  will  do  it  all. 

I  almost  hesitate  as  I  speak  of  the  next  element  of 
ihe  preacher's  power.  I  almost  doubt  by  what  name 
I  shall  call  it  to  give  the  impression  of  the  thing  I 
mean.  Perhaps  there  is  no  better  name  than  Grav- 
ity. I  mean  simply  that  grave  and  serious  way  of 
looking  at  life  which,  while  it  never  repels  the  true 
lightheartedness  of  pure  and  trustful  hearts,  welcomes 
into  a  manifest  sympathy  the  souls  of  men  who  are 
oppressed  and  burdened,  anxious  and  full  of  questions 
which  for  the  time  at  least  have  banished  all  laughter 
from  their  faces.  I  know,  indeed,  the  miserableness 
of  all  mock  gravity.  I  think  I  am  as  much  disgusted 
at  it  as  anybody.  The  abuse  and  satire  that  have 
been  heaped  uprin  it  are  legitimate  enougli,  though 
•omewhat  cheaj).  The  gravity  that  is  assumed,  that 
merely  hides  with  solemn  front  the  lack  of  thought 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  5£ 

and  feeling,  that  is  put  on  as  the  uniform  of  a  pro- 
fession, that  consists  in  certain  forms,  and  is  shocked 
at  a-iy  serious  thought  of  life  more  truly  grave  than 
it  is,  but  which  happens  to  show  itself  under  other 
forms  which  it  chooses  to 'call  frivolous,  this  is  worthy 
of  all  satire  and  contempt.     The  merely  solemn  min- 
isters are  very  empty,  and  deserve  all  that  has  been 
"heaped  upon  them  of  contempt  through  all  the  ages. 
They  are   cheats   and   shams.     As   tliey  stand   with 
their  little   knobs   of  prejudice  down    their  straight 
coats  of  precision,  they  are  like  nothing  so  much  as 
the  chest  of  drawers  which  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer  showed 
to  Mr.  Winkle  in  his  httle  surgery  :  "  Dummies,  my 
dear  boy,"  said  he  to  his  impressed,  astonished  vis- 
itor ;  "  half  the  drawers  have  nothing  in  them,  and 
the  other  half  don't  open."     I  know  what  the  abuse 
of  such  men  means.     I  know  there  are  men  who  de- 
serve it.     But  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  we  have 
about  come  to  the  time  when  all  of  that  abuse  is  of 
the  safe  and  feeble  character  which   belongs  to  all 
satire  of  unpopular  foibles  and  abuses  which  are  in 
decay.    I  think  that  at  least  there  is  another  creature 
who  ought  to  share  with  the  clerical  prig  the  con- 
lempt  of  Christian  people.    I  mean  the  clerical  jester 
'\v\  all  tlie  varieties  of  his  unpleasant  existence.     He 
appears  in  and  out  of  the  pulpit.     He  lays  his  hands 
Dn  the  most  sacred  things,  and  leaves  defilement  upon 
ali  he  touches.     He  is  full  of  Bible  jokes.     He  talks 


66  LECTURES   ON  I>lU:Ai  II ING. 

ftbout  the  Church's  sacred  symbols  in  the  language 
of  stale  jests  that  have  come  down  fi-om  generations 
of  feeble  clerical  jesters  before  him.  The  doctrines 
which,  if  they  mean  anything,  mean  life  or  death  to 
Bouls,  he  turns  into  material  for  chalf  that  flies  back 
and  forth,  like  the  traditional  banter  of  the  Thames, 
between  the  clerical  watermen  who  ply  their  boats 
on  this  side  or  that  side  of  the  river  of  Theology. 
There  are  passages  in  the  Bible  which  are  soiled 
forever  by  the  touches  which  the  hands  of  ministers 
who  delight  in  cheap  and  easy  jokes  have  left  upon 
them. 

I  think  there  is  nothing  that  stirs  one's  indignation 
more  than  this,  in  all  he  sees  of  ministers.  It  is  a 
purely  wanton  fault.  What  is  simply  stupid  every- 
where else  becomes  terrible  here.  The  buffoonery 
which  merely  tries  me  when  I  hear  it  from  a  gang 
of  laborers  digging  a  ditch  beside  my  door  angers 
and  frightens  me  when  it  comes  from  the  lips  of  the 
captain  who  holds  the  helm  or  the  surgeon  on  whose 
skill  my  life  depends.  You  will  not  misunderstand 
nie,  I  am  sure.  The  gravity  of  which  I  speak  is  not 
inconsistent  ^^ith  the  keenest  perception  of  the  ludi- 
crous side  of  things.  It  is  more  than  consistent  with 
—  it  is  even  necessary  to  — humor.  Humor  involves 
the  perception  of  the  true  proportions  of  life.  It  ia 
one  of  the  most  helpful  qualities  that  the  preacher 
3au   possess.      There    is   no   extravagance   wliieli   de- 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  57 

forms  the  pulpit  which  would  not  be  modiiied  and 
repressed,  often  entirely  obliterated,  if  the  ministe:' 
had  a  true  sense  of  humor.  It  has  softened  the  bit- 
terness of  controversy  a  thousand  times.  You  can- 
not encourage  it  too  much.  You  cannot  grow  too 
familiar  with  the  books  of  all  ages  which  have  in 
them  the  truest  humor,  for  the  truest  humor  is  the 
bloom  of  the  highest  life.  Read  George  Eliot  and 
Thackeray,  and,  above  all,  Shakespeare.  They  will 
help  you  to  keep  from  extravagances  without  fading 
into  insipidity.  They  will  preserve  your  gravity  while 
they  save  you  from  pompous  solemnity.  But  humor 
is  something  very  different  from  frivolity.  People 
sometimes  ask  whether  it  is  right  to  make  people 
laugh  in  church  by  something  that  you  say  from  the 
pulpit,  —  as  if  laughter  were  always  one  invariable 
thing  ;  as  if  there  were  not  a  smile  which  swept 
across  a  great  congregation  like  the  breath  of  a  May 
morning,  making  it  fruitful  for  whatever  good  thing 
might  be  sowed  in  it,  and  another  laughter  that  was 
like  the  crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot.  The  smile 
that  is  stirred  by  true  humor  and  the  smile  that 
comes  from  the  mere  tickling  of  the  fancy  are  as 
different  from  one  another  as  the  tears  that  sorrow 
forces  from  the  soul  are  from  the  tears  that  you  com- 
pel a  man  to  shed  by  pinching  him. 

And  there  is  no   delusion   greater  than   to  think 
what  you  commend  your  work  and  gain  an  influence 


58  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

over  people  by  becoming  the  clericiil  luiinorist.  It 
builds  a  wall  between  your  fellow-iuen  and  you. 
It  makes  them  less  inclined  to  seek  you  in  their  spir- 
itual need.  I  think  that  many  of  us  feel  this,  and 
have  a  sort  of  dread  when  we  see  laymen  growing 
familiar  with  clergymen's  society.  That  society  is 
on  the  whole  lofty  and  inspiring,  but  there  are  some 
things  in  it  of  which  you  wlio  are  soon  to  become 
clergymen  must  beware.  Keep  the  sacredness  of  your 
profession  clear  and  bright  even  in  little  things.  Re- 
frain from  all  joking  about  congregations,  flocks,  par- 
ish visits,  sermons,  the  mishaps  of  the  pulpit,  or  the 
makeshifts  of  the  study.  Such  joking  is  always  bad, 
and  almost  always  stupid  ;  but  it  is  very  common, 
and  it  takes  the  bloom  off  a  young  minister's  life. 
This  is  the  reason  why  so  many  people  shrink,  I 
believe,  from  personally  knowing  the  preachers  to 
whom  they  listen  with  respect  and  gratitude.  They 
fear  what  they  so  often  find.  But  really  the  minis- 
ter's life  may  be  a  help  and  enforcement  of  all  his 
preaching.  The  quality  which  makes  it  so  is  this 
which  I  call  gravity.  It  has  a  delicate  power  of  dis- 
crimination. It  attracts  all  that  it  can  help  and  it 
repels  all  that  could  harm  it  or  be  harmed  by  it.  It 
admits  the  earnest  and  simple  with  a  cordial  wel* 
oome.  It  shuts  out  the  impertinent  and  insincere 
inexorably.  Pure  gravity  is  like  the  hinges  of  the 
wonderful  gates  of  the  ancient  labyrinth,  so  strong 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  59 

that  no  battery  could  break  them  down,  but  so  deli- 
cately hung  tliat  a  child's  light  touch  could  make 
them  swing  back  and  let  him  in. 

There   is    another   soiirce   of    power  which   I   can 
hardly  think  of  as  a  separate  quality,  but  rather  as 
tlie  sum  and  result  of  all  the  qualities  which  I  have 
been  naming.     I  mean  Courage.     It  is  the  indispen- 
sable requisite  of  any  true  ministry.     The  timid  min- 
ister is  as  bad  as  the  timid  surgeon.    Courage  is  good 
everywhere,   but  it   is   necessary   here.     If    you   are 
afraid  of  men  and  a  slave  to  their  opinion,  go  and  do 
something  else.     Go  and  make  shoes  to  fit  them.    Go 
even  and  paint  pictures  which  jou  know  are  bad  but 
which  suit  their  bad  taste.     But  do  not  keep  on  all 
your  life  preaching  sermons  which  shall  say  not  what 
God  sent  you  to  declare,  but  what  they  hire  you  to 
say.     Be  courageous.    Be  independent.    Only  remem- 
ber where  the  true  courage  and  independence  comes 
from.     Courage  in   the   ministry  is,  I  think,  one  of 
those  qualities  which  cannot  be  healthily  acquired  if 
it  is  sought  for  directly.     It  must  come  as  health) 
comes  in  the  body,  as  the  result  of  tlie  seeking  for 
other  things.     It  must  be  from  a  sincere  respect  forj 
men's  higher  nature  that  you  must  grow  bold  to  re-j 
5ist  their  whims.     He  who  begins  by  despising  men 
>vill  often  end  by  being   their  slave.     A  passionate/ 
iesire  to  do  men  good  is  always  the  surest  safepiard  ' 
that  they  shall  not  do  us  harm.     Jesus  himself  was 


60   .  LECTURES   ON    PREACin?i  J. 

hold  before  men  out  of  the  infinite  love  which  He  felt 
fof  men.  That  wjis  the  way  in  which  He  ruled  them 
from  His  cross,  and  was  their  master  because  He  was 
their  servant  even  unto  death. 

There  is  one  other  topic  upon  which  I  wished  U> 
dwell  in  this  lecture,  but  on  this  I  must  speak  ver/ 
briefly.  I  wanted  to  try  to  estimate  with  you  son.e 
of  the  dangers  to  a  man's  own  character  which  come 
from  his  being  a  preacher.  The  first  of  these  dan- 
gers, beyond  all  doubt,  is  Self-conceit.  In  a  certain 
sense  every  young  minister  is  conceited.  He  begins 
his  ministry  in  a  conceited  condition.  At  least  every 
man  begins  with  extravagant  expectations  of  what 
his  ministry  is  to  result  in.  We  come  out  from  it 
by  and  by.  A  man's  first  wonder  when  he  begins  to 
preach  is  that  people  do  not  come  to  hear  him.  After 
a  while,  if  he  is  good  for  anything,  he  begins  to  won- 
der that  they  do.  He  finds  out  that  old  Adam  is  too 
strong  for  voung  Melanchthon.  It  is  not  stranjje  that 
it  should  be  so.  It  is  not  to  the  young  minister's  dis- 
credit that  it  should  be  so.  Th-  student  for  the  min- 
istry has  to  a  large  extent  comprehended  the  force 
by  which  he  is  to  woi'k,  but  he  has  not  measured  the 
resistance  that  lie  is  to  meet,  IIc^  knows  the  power 
of  the  truth  of  which  Ik^  is  all  full,  but  he  has  not 
estimated  tiie  sin  of  which  the  w^orld  is  all  full.  The 
more  earnest  and  intense  and  full  of  love  for  God  and 
oian  he  is,  the  more  impossible  does  it  seem  that  he 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELt.  Qa 

should  not  do  great  things  for  his  Master.  And  then 
the  character  of  men's  ministries,  it  seems  to  me,  de- 
pends very  largely  upon  the  ways  in  wliich  they  pass 
out  of  that  first  self-confidence  and  upon  what  con- 
dition comes  afterwards  when  it  is  gone. 

The  first  way  in  which  life  affects  this  self-confi- 
dence and  lifts  men  out  of  their  conceit  is  by  Success, 
by  letting  us  see  the  work  which  we  are  undertaking 
actually  going  on  under  our  hands.  It  is  only  in  poor 
men  and  in  the  lower  things  that  success  increases  self- 
conceit.  In  every  high  work  and  in  men  worthy  of 
it,  success  is  always  sure  to  bring  humility.  "  Recog- 
nition," said  Hawthorne  once,  "  makes  a  man  very 
modest."  The  kjiowledge  that  you  are  really  accom- 
plishing results,  and  the  reassurance  of  that  knowl- 
edge by  the  judgment  of  your  fellow-men,  opens  to 
you  the  deeper  meaning  of  your  work,  shows  you 
how  great  it  is,  makes  you  ashamed  of  all  the  praise 
men  give  you,  as  you  see  gradually  how  much  better 
your  work  might  have  been  done.  I  think  that  some 
of  the  noblest  and  richest  characters  among  ministers 
in  all  times  are  those  who  have  been  humiliated  by 
men's  praises  and  enlightened  by  success. 

Rut  there  is  another  way  by  which  men  go  out  of 
their  first  satisfaction,  by  a  door  directly  opposite  to 
this,  —  by  Failure.  Failure  and  success  to  really  work- 
ing ministers  are  only  relative.  Remember  that  no 
true  man  wholly  succeeds  or  wholly  fails.     But  the 


62  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

mt.iu  difference  in  effect  between  what  we  call  succesa 
and  wliat  we  call  failure  in  the  ministry  is  here :  suc- 
cess makes  a  man  dwell  upon  and  be  thankful  for  how 
much  a  preacher  can  do ;  failure  makes  a  man  think 
how  much  there  is  which  no  preacher  can  do,  and  is 
apt  to  weigh  him  down  into  depression.  It  confronts 
him  with  the  magnitude  of  the  task  of  the  Christian 
ministry,  not  as  a  great  temptation,  but  as  a  great 
burden.     He  is  paralyzed  as  Hamlet  was. 

"  The  time  is  out  of  joint :  0  cursed  spite, 
That  ever  I  was  born  to  set  it  riglit !  " 

Such  an  end  of  a  young  man's  first  high  hopes  is 
terrible  to  see.  The  very  power  that  once  made  him 
strong  now  weakens  him.  The  wekjht  that  was  his 
ballast  and  helped  his  speed  sinks  wi^i  when  once  the 
leak  has  come.  There  is  no  help  except  in  a  pro- 
founder  retreat  of  the  whole  nature  upon  God,  —  s'jch 
a  perception  of  Him  and  of  His  dearness  as  shall  take 
oft'  our  heavy  responsibility  and  make  us  ready  to  fail 
for  Him  with  joy  as  well  as  to  succeed  for  Him,  if 
such  shall  be  His  choice  ;  and  ready  to  work  as  hard 
for  Him  in  fiiilure  as  ii}_^succesSj  beca^use  we  work  not 
fur  success  but  for  Him.  The  drawing  of  the  man 
back  into  God  by  failure  is  always  a  noble  sight,  and 
no  region  of  life  has  such  noble  specimens  of  it  to 
8how  as  the  Christian  ministry. 

There  is  another  refuge  when  the  yuung  preacher's 
Srst  self-conceit  is  shaken.     It  is  into  another  self 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  Q^ 

conceit  wnich  is  smaller  than  the  first.  The  be- 
leaguered householder  refuses  to  surrender,  and  re- 
treats from  his  strong  outer  i-amparts,  defending  one 
line  after  another  till  at  last  he  dwells  onl}^  in  his 
most  mean  and  worthless  chamber.  A  man  makes  up 
his  mind  that  he  is  not  going  to  convert  the  world. 
The  strongholds  of  the  Prince  of  Evil  evidently  will 
not  fall  before  him.  He  is  to  leave  the  unbuilt  king- 
dom of  God  very  much  as  he  found  it  when  he  came 
into  the  ministry.  But  then  he  falls  back  upon  some 
petty  pride.  "  My  church  is  full ;  "  "  My  name  is 
prominent  in  the  movements  of  my  denomination  ;  " 
"  My  sermons  win  the  compliments  of  people ; "  or 
simply  this,  "I  am  a  minister.  I  bear  a  dignity  that 
these  laymen  cannot  boast.  I  have  an  ordination 
which  separates  me  into  an  indefinable,  mysterious 
privilege."  Here  is  the  beginning  of  -many  of  the 
fantastic  and  exaggerated  theories  about  the  minis- 
try. The  little  preacher  magnifies  his  office  in  a  most 
unpauline  way.  And  you  hear  a  man  to  whom  no  one 
cares  to  listen  quoting  the  solemn  words  of  God  about 
"whether  men  will  hear  or  whether  they  wil  for- 
bear," as  if  they  had  been  spoken  to  him  as  much  as 
to  Ezekiel. 

What  shall  we  say  then  ?  What  is  the  true -escape 
from  the  crudeness  of  the  untried  preacher  which  set- 
lies  and  centres  all  his  thought  upon  himself?  It  ia 
fcu  escape  which  many  a  preacher  has  found  nnd  grad- 


b4  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

ually  passed  into.  It  is  the  growing  devotion  of  his 
life  to  God,  the  more  and  more  complete  absorption 
of  his  being  in  the  seeking  of  God's  glory.  As  he 
goes  on,  the  work  nnfolds  itself.  It  outgoes  all  his 
powers.  But  as  he  looks  over  its  increasing  vastnesa 
he  sees  it  on  every  side  touching  the  omnipotence  of 
God.  As  he  sees  more  and  more  clearly  that  he  will 
n'jver  do  what  he  once  hoped  to  do,  it  becomes  clear 
to  him  at  the  same  time  that  God  will  do  it  in  His 
own  time  and  way.  His  own  disappointment  is  swal- 
lowed up  and  drowned  in  the  promise  of  his  Lord's 
success.  He  becomes  a  true  John  Baptist.  He  is 
happy  with  a  higher  joy,  and  works  with  an  energy 
that  he  never  knew  before.  This  is  the  true  refu<xe 
of  the  minister  in  the  disenchantment  of  his  earliest 
dreams. 

Another  of  the  dangers  of  the  clergyman's  life  is 
Self-indulgence.  The  ways  and  methods  of  the  min- 
ister's work  are  almost  wholly  at  his  own  control.  It 
is  impossible  for  him  to  reduce  his  life  to  a  routine. 
There  are  but  few  tests  which  he  must  meet  at  spe- 
cial times,  as  a  business  man  must  meet  his  notes 
when  they  are  due.  And  a  great  deal  of  his  work  is 
of  that  sort  which  requires  spontaneity  for  its  best 
txecution.  The  result  of  all  these  causes  working  to- 
gether is  to  create  in  many  a  minister  a  certain  feel- 
ing that  his  faithfulness  in  his  work  is  not  to  be 
judged  as  other  men's  faithfulness  in  their  work  ia 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF.  65 

Indeed,  I  think,  the  very  consciousness  of  laboring 
under  a  loftier  motive  has  often  a  tendency  to  weaken 
the  conscientiousness  with  which  each  minute  detail 
of  work  is  met.  There  is  a  lurking  Antinomianism 
in  many  a  most  arminian  study.  We  are  apt  to  be- 
come men  of  moods,  thinking  we  cannot  work  unless 
we  feel  like  it.  There  is  just  enough  of  the  artistic 
element  in  what  we  have  to  do,  to  let  us  fall  into  the 
artisf  s  ways  and  leave  our  brushes  idle  when  the  sky 
frowns  or  the  head  aches.  But  the  artistic  element 
is,  afteji  all^__the  sniallejit_element  in  the  true  ser- 
mon. Its  best  qualities  depend  on  those  moral  and 
spiritual  conditions  which  may  be  always  present  in 
the  devoted  servant  of  God.  And  so  the  first  busi- 
ness of  the  preacher  is  to  conquer  the  tyranny  of  his 
moods,  and  to  be  always  ready  for  his  work.  It  can 
be  done.  The  man  who  has  not  learned  to  do  it  has 
not  really  reached  the  secret  of  Jesus,  v/hicli  was  such 
utter  love  for  His  Father  and  man,  between  whom  He 
Btood,  as  obliterated  all  thought  of  Himself  save  as  a 
medium,  through  which  the  divine  might  come  down 
to  the  human.  We  read  of  Jesus  that  He  again  and 
again  grew  heavy  in  spirit.  In  utter  weariness,  some- 
times, when  His  work  was  done,  He  would  witlidraw 
into  a  mountain,  or  put  out  in  a  boat  upon  the  lake. 
We  can  feel  the  fluctuations  of  that  humanity  of  His, 
^nd,  interpreting  it  by  our  own,  we  can  seem  to  see 
how  one  bright  morning  by  the  seaside  He  was  exu- 
6 


6b*  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

berant  and  joyous,  and  on  another  morninof  He  would 
be  sad  and  burdened.  We  can  trace  the  dilTerences 
in  the  kind  of  preaching  of  the  two  different  days. 
But  through  it  all  there  is  nothing  in  the  least  like 
self-indulgence.  We  are  sure  that  no  day  ever  Avent 
without  its  preaching,  because  it  found  him  moody 
and  depressed.  He  did  no  mighty  works  in  Naza- 
reth ;  but  it  was  because  of  the  peoj5le's  unbelief,  not 
because  of  his  own  reluctance.  So  it  may  be  with 
us.  It  is  part  of  the  privilege  of  our  humanity,  it  is 
part  of  the  advantage  of  our  people  in  having  men 
and  not  machines  for  ministers,  that  we  preach  the 
truth  in  various  lights,  or  shades,  according  as  God 
brightens  or  darkens  our  own  experience  ;  but  any 
mood  which  makes  us  unlit  to  preach  at  all,  or  really 
weakens  our  will  to  preach,  is  bad,  and  can  be  broken 
through.  Then  is  the  time  for  the  conscience  to  be- 
stir itself  and  for  the  man  to  be  a  man. 

I  wish  that  it  were  possible  for  one  to  spealc  to  the 
laity  of  our  churches  frankly  and  freely  about  their 
treatment  of  the  c-lerg}'.  The  clergy  are  largely  what 
the  laity  make  them.  And  though  one  may  look 
wholly  without  regret  upon  the  departure  of  that 
reverence,  which  seems  to  have  clothed  the  preacher's 
oflice  in  our  fathers'  days,  I  think  lie  must  have  nany 
misgivings  about  the  weaker  substitute  for  it,  which 
in  many  instances  has  taken  its  place.  It  was  not 
good   that   the    minister  should    be    worshipped    ani 


THE  PR  \A  CHER   HIMSELF.  67 

made  an  oracle.  It  is  still  worse  that  lie  should  be 
flattered  and  made  a  pet.  And  there  is  such  a  ten- 
dency in  these  days  among  our  weaker  people.  I 
have  already  spoken  of  the  way  in  which  many  men 
are  petted  into  the  ministry'-.  It  is  possible  for  such 
a  man,  if  he  has  popular  gifts,  to  be  petted  all 
through  his  ministry,  never  once  to  come  into  strong 
contact  with  other  men,  or  to  receive  one  good  hard 
knock  of  the  sort  that  bi-ings  out  manliness  and  char- 
acter. The  people  who  gather  closest  around  a  min- 
ister's life,  believing  his  beliefs,  and  accepting  his 
standards,  make  a  sort  of  cushion  between  him  and 
the  unbelief  and  wickedness  which  smite  other  men 
in  the  face  and  wound  them  mercilessly  at  every  turn- 
It  is  not  wholly  unnatural.  The  minister  "stands  in 
a  unique  position  to  the  community.  In  no  other 
man's  private  affairs,  his  health,  his  comfort,  his  free- 
dom from  financial  care,  are  so  many  people  so  di- 
rectly interested.  It  is  not  strange  that  that  interest 
in  him  and  care  for  him,  which  ought  simply  to  put 
him  where,  without  personal  fear  or  personal  indebt- 
edness, he  may  bravely  and  independently  be  himself 
and  speak  out  his  own  soul,  should  often  be  corrupted 
vnto  a  poison  of  his  manhood,  and  a  temptation  to  his 
lelf-indulgence.  It  is  beyond  all  doubt  the  weal^  point 
of  our  American  voluntary  system  which  brings  the 
minister  into  those  close  personal  relations  to  his  peo- 
ple, which  on  the  whole  are  good  and  healthy,  but 
\»'hich  have  this  one  defect  and  danger. 


i)8  LECl  JRES   ON  PREACHING. 

If  you  have  read  the  Y\U\  of  Frederick  Robertson 
you  know  how  hateful  many  of  the  incidents  of  the 
life  of  a  popular  minister  were  to  him.  So  they 
must  be  to  every  true  num.  If  a  man  is  not  wholly 
true  they  hnd  out  his  weak  point  and  fix  upon  it. 
He  begins  to  expect  different  treatment  from  other 
men.  His  personal  woes  and  pains  seem  to  him 
things  of  public  interest.  He  grows  first  unhuman 
in  the  separation  from  the  ordinary  standards  of  hia 
race,  and  that  makes  him  inluiman,  unsympathetic. 
The  weak  is  always  cruel. 

Mr.  Galton,  in  his  work  on  "  Hereditary  Genius," 
Bumming  up  the  result  of  liis  reading  in  clerical  biog- 
raphies, declares  that  '*  A  gently  complaining  and 
fatigued  spirit  is  that  in  which  Evangelical  Divines 
are  very  apt  to  pass  their  days."  These  words  tell 
perfectly  a  story  that  Ave  all  know  who  have  been  in- 
timate, with  many  ministers.  That  which  ought  to 
be  the  manliest  of  all  professions  has  a  tendency,  prac- 
tically, to  make  men  unmanly.  Men  make  appeals 
for  sympathy  that  no  true  man  should  make.  They 
take  to  themselves  St.  Paul's  pathos  Avithout  St. 
Paul's  strength.  Against  that  tendency,  my  friends. 
Bet  your  whole  foi  je.  Fear  its  insidiousness.  "I  feel 
no  intoxieating  elTect,"  Avrote  Maeaulay  when  the  firet 
Hush  of  his  success  was  on  him,  "  but  a  man  niiiy  be 
drunk  without  knowing  it."  Insist  on  applying  to 
yourseJf  tests  which   oth(>r8  refuse   to   apply  to  a  ou 


THE  PREACHER  HIMSELF.  60 

Resent  indulgences  which_are3ot,.given_JO-JlLen_gf 
other^^erofessions.  Learn  to  enjoy  and  be  sober; 
[earn  to  suffer  and  be  strong.  Never  appeal  for  sym- 
pathy. Let  it  find  you  out  if  it  will.  Count  your 
manliness  the  soul  of  your  ministry  and  resist  all  at- 
tacks upon  it  however  sweetly  they  may  come. 

I  had  hoped  to  say  some  words,  to-day,  about  one 
other  danger  of  the  preacher's  life,  I  mean  the  dan- 
ger of  narrowness.     We  all  live  within  the  rings  of 
concentric  circles.     They  extend  one  beyond  another 
till  they  come  to  that  outmost  circle  of  all,  the  hori- 
zon where  humanity  touches  divinity,  as  the  earth 
meets  the  sky.     Now  I  hold  that  all  that  is  by  God's 
appointment,  and  is  intended  for  our  best  good.     The 
narrowness  is  for  the  sake  of  breadth.     I- hold  that 
every  smaller  circle  is  meant  to  carry   the  eye   out 
to  the  next  larger  than  itself,  and  so,  at  last,  to  the 
largest  of  all.    You  stand  firm  on  your  one  little  spot, 
and  thence  you  look  out  and  find  yourself  like  Ten- 
nyson's eagle,  "  ringed  with    the  azure  world."     So 
every  smaller  circle  of  your  moral  life  is  meant  to 
carry  you  out,  and  make  you  realize  the  larger  circles. 
You  may  be  a  better  minister  because  you  are  clear  in 
your  denominational  position  as  a  Congregationalist 
or  Episcopalian  ;  and  because  you  are  a  minister  you 
may  be  a  better  man.    The  danger  is  lest  the  smiiUer 
circle,  instead  of    tempting  the   sight  onward,  jeal- 
ously confines  it  to  itself.     Narr<  wness  is  to  be  es- 


70  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

capod,  not  by  deserting  our  special  function,  but  by 
compelling  it  to  open  to  U3  the  things  beyond  itself. 
You  will  not  be  a  better  man  by  pretending  that  you 
are  not  a  Christian,  nor  a  better  Christian  by  pre- 
tendincf  to  have  no  dogmatic  faith.  The  true  breadth 
comes  by  the  strength  of  your  own  belief  making  you 
tolerant  of  other  believers ;  and  by  the  earnestness  of 
your  Christianity  teaching  you  your  brotherhood  even 
to  the  most  unchristian  men. 

I  must  stop  here.  I  have  spoken  very  freely  of 
these  dangers  and  hindrances  with  which  the  preach- 
er's occupations  beset  his  character.  Yet  you  must 
not  misundei'stand  me.  There  is  no  occupation  in 
which  it  is  so  possible,  nay  so  easy  to  live  a  noble  life. 
These  tares  grow  rank  only  because  the  soil  is  rich. 
The  wheat  grows  rich  beside  them.  The  Christian 
ministry  is  the  largest  field  for  the  growth  of  a  human 
BOuT  tliat  this  world  offers.  In  it  he  who  is  faithful 
must  go  on  learning  more  and  more  forever.  His 
growth  in  learning  is  all  bound  up  with  his  growth  in 
character.  Nowhere  else  do  the  moral  and  intellect- 
ual so  sympathize,  and  lose  or  gain  together.  The 
tiiinister  must  grow.  His  true  growth  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  change  of  views.  It  is  a  change  of  vieAV.  It 
.8  not  revolution.  It  is  progress.  It  is  a  continual 
climbing  which  opens  continually  wider  orospecta. 
It  repeats  the  experience  of  Christ's  ilisciplcs  of  whom 


THE  PREACHER   HIMSELF.  71 

Isheir  Lord  was  always  making  larger  men  and  then 
giving  them  the  larger  truth  of  which  their  enlarged 
natures  had  become  capable.  Once  more,  I  rejoice 
for  you  that  this  is  the  ministry  in  which  you  are  to 
spend  your  ))¥©*. 


THE   PREACHER   IN   H1.«S    WORK. 


ATTHEN  I  was  just  about  to  begin  the  writing 
'^  '  of  this  lecture,  I  chanced  "to  be  thrown  for  a 
day  or  two  into  the  company  of  a  young  man  who 
had  been  engaged  in  the  work  of  the  ministry  only 
a  few  months.  He  was  in  the  first  flush  and  fervor 
of  his  new  experience,  and  in  listening  to  him  I  re- 
called much  of  the  spirit  with  which  I  myself  began 
man}^  years  ago.  The  spirit  had  not  passed  away, 
but  the  first  freshness  of  many  impressions  had  been 
ripened,  I  hope,  into  something  better,  but  still  into 
something  soberer.  He  revived  for  me  the  delight 
of  that  new  and  strange  relation  to  his  fellow-men 
which  comes  when  a  young  man  who  thus  far  in 
his  life  has  had  others  ministering  to  him,  finds  the 
conditions  now  reversed  and  other  men  are  looking 
up  to  him  for  culture.  There  is  the  sober  joy  ot 
responsibility.  There  is  the  sui'prised  recognition  of 
something  which  we  have  learned  in  some  one  of  our 
B'lhools  of  books  or  life,  and  counted  useh'ss,  which 
now  some  man  we  meet  welcomes  when  we  give  it  1  j 
hira  as  if  it  were  the  one  thin^  f<>r  which  he  hat(  hveu 


THE  PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  7?, 

always  waiting.  There  is  the  liopefulness  that  feaia 
no  failure.  There  is  the  pleasure  of  a  new  knowl- 
edge of  ourselves  as  others  begin  to  call  out  in  us 
what  we  never  knew  was  there.  There  is  the  joy  of 
being  trusted  and  responded  to.  There  is  the  deep- 
ened sacredness  of  prayer  and  of  communion  with 
God  when  we  go  to  Him,  not  merely  for  ourselves  and 
for  the  great  vague  world,  but  for  a  people  whom  we 
have  begun  to  love  and  call  our  own,  while  we  know 
that  they  are  His.  There  is  the  discovery  of  the 
better  and  devouter  nature  in  men.  There  is  the 
interest  of  countless  new  details  and  the  inspiration 
of  the  noblest  purpose  for  which  a  man  can  live.  All 
these  together  make  up  the  happiness  and  hope  of 
those  bright  days  in  which  a  strong  and  healthy  and 
devout  young  man  is  just  entering  the  ministry  of  tha 
Gospel. 

I  wish  to  speak  to  you  to-day  about  the  preacher 
in  his  work,  and  what  I  shall  have  to  say  will  natu- 
rally divide  itself  into  suggestions  with  reference  to 
the  nature,  the  method,  and  the  spirit  of  that  work. 

I  must  recur  to  what  I  said  in  the  first  lecture 
about  the  true  character  of  preaching.  Preaching  is 
the  communication  of  truth  through  a  man  to  men. 
The  human  element  is  essential  in  it,  and  not  merely 
accidental.  There  cannot  really  be  a  sermon  in  a 
Btone,  whatever  lessons  the  stone  may  have  to  teach. 
This  being  so,  we  must  carry  out  the  importance  of 


74  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  human  element  to  its  full  consequence.  Jt  is  no* 
only  necessary  for  a  sermon  tliiit  there  should  be  a 
human  being  to  speak  to  other  human  beings,  but  h\x 
a  good  sermon  there  must  be  a  man  who  can  speak 
well,  whose  nature  stands  in  right  relations  to  ihoso 
to  whom  he  speaks,  who  has  brought  his  life  close  to 
theirs  with  sympathy.  In  every  highest  task  there 
is  an  instinctive  tendency  of  men  to  shirk  and  hide 
under  the  protection  of  some  idea  of  fate.  And  very 
often  we  hear  ministers  trying  to  escape  responsibil- 
ity by  vague  and  foolish  statements  that  tlic  truth  is 
everything,  and  that  it  ought  not  to  make  any  differ- 
ence to  a  congregation  how  or  from  whom  they  hear 
it.  It  is  a  latent  fatalissm,  a  readiness  to  count  out 
of  the  highest  operations  the  play  of  human  free  will 
and  choice,  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  such  speeches. 
The  same  I'eason  which  requires  a  man  for  a  ])reacher 
at  all  requires  as  wise  and  strong  and  well-furnished, 
as  skilful  and  as  eloquent  a  man  as  can  be  found  or 
made.  The  duty  of  making  yourself  acceptable  to 
people,  and  winning  by  all  manly  ways  their  con- 
fidence in  you,  and  in  the  truth  which  you  tell,  is 
one  that  is  involved  in  the  very  fact  of  your  being  a 
preacher.  And  the  dignity  of  the  purpose  gives  dig- 
/lity  to  many  details  which  in  themselves  are  trivial. 
The  study  of  language  and  of  oratory,  whic'li  would 
belittle  you  if  they  were  merely  undertaken  for  your 
own  culture,  are  noble  when  you  undertake  them  in 


THE  PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  75 

order  that  your  tongue  may  be  a  worthier  minister 
'A  God's  truth  ;  and  the  assiduous  attention  to  peo- 
pk>,  and  their  tastes  and  habits  and  ways  of  think- 
ing, which  would  be  slavery  if  it  had  no  object  be- 
sides their  pleasure  or  your  own  repute,  is  a  lofty 
exercise,  if  it  has  for  its  purpose  the  finding  out  on 
which  side  of  every  man  you  can  best  bring  to  him 
the  truth.  Here  stands  a  man,  and  two  other  men 
are  watching  him.  Both  of  them  are  studying  his 
character.  Both  want  to  know  what  he  thinks  about, 
what  his  tastes  are,  how  he  spends  his  time.  One  of 
them  is  trying  to  find  how  he  can  best  win  from  him 
a  dollar  or  a  vote.  The  other  is  trying  to  see  what 
is  his  true  way  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  that  fellow- 
man.  There  are  the  meanest  and  the  noblest  rela- 
tions which  any  man  can  occupy  toward  his  fellow- 
man.  The  first  is  ignominious  beyond  description. 
It  is  a  relation'  too  low  for  any  man  to  hold.  A  true 
man  would  rather  starve  than  occupy  it.  But  the 
other  is  a  relation  in  which  every  man  must  stand 
who  means  to  really  preach  to  any  brother.  It  is  but 
the  effort  after  what  it  is  in  our  feeble  power  to  at- 
tain of  that  knowledge  of  humanity  which  was  in 
Him  who  "  knew  what  was  in  man,"  and  who,  there« 
fore,  "  spake  as  never  man  spake." 

It  follows  from  this  that  the  work  of  the  preacher 
and  the  pastor  really  belong  together,  and  ought  not 
Co  be  separated.    I  believe  that  very  strongly.    Everj 


re  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

now  and  then  somebody  rises  with  a  plea  that  is  very 
familiar  and  specious.  He  says,  how  much  better  it 
would  be  if  only  there  could  be  a  classification  of 
ministers  and  duties.  Let  some  ministers  be  Avholly 
preachers,  and  some  be  wholly  pastors.  Let  one 
class  visit  the  flock,  to  direct  and  comfort  them  ;  and 
the  other  class  stand  in  the  j)iilpit.  You  will  not  go 
far  in  your  ministry  before  you  will  be  tempted  to 
echo  that  desire.  The  two  parts  of  a  preacher's  work 
are  always  in  rivalry.  When  you  find  that  you  can 
never  sit  down  to  study  and  write  without  the  faces 
of  the  people,  who  you  know  need  your  care,  look- 
ing out  at  you  from  the  paper ;  and  yet  you  never 
can  "go  out  among  your  people  without  hearing  your 
forsaken  study  I'eproaching  you,  and  calling  you 
home,  you  may  easily  come  to  believe  that  it  would 
be  good  indeed  if  you  could  bo  one  or  other  of  two 
things,  and  not  both  ;  either  a  preacher  or  a  pastor, 
but  not  the  two  together.  But  I  assure  you  you  are 
wrong.  The  two  things  are  not  two,  but  one.  There 
may  be  preachers  here  and  there  with  such  a  deep, 
intense  insight  into  the  general  humanity,  that  they 
can  speak  to  men  without  knowing  the  men  to  whom 
they  speak.  Such  preachers  are  very  lare  ;  and  other 
preachers,  who  have  not  their  power,  trying  to  do  it, 
an;  sure  to  preach  to  some  unreal,  unhuman  man  of 
their  own  imagination.  There  ai'e  some  pastors  here 
and  thcro  with  such  a  constantly  lofty  and  spiritual 


THE  PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  7 "J 

view  of  little  things,  that  they  can  go  about  from 
house  to  house,  year  after  year,  and  deal  with  men  and 
women  at  their  common  work,  and  lift  the  men  and 
women  to  themselves,  and  never  fall  to  the  level  of  the 
men  and  women  whom  they  teach.  Such  pastors  are 
rare ;  and  other  men,  trying  to  do  it,  and  never  in  more 
formal  way  from  the  pul[)it  treating  truth  in  its  larger 
aspects,  are  sure  to  grow  frivolous  gossips  or  tiresome 
machines.  The  preacher  needs  to  be  pastor,  that, 
he  may  preach  to  real  men.  The  pastor  must  be 
preaclier,  that  he  may  keep  the  dignity  of  his  work 
alive.  The  preacher,  who  is  not  a  pastor,  grows  re- 
mote. The  pastor,  who  is  not  a  preacher,  grows 
petty.  Never  be  content  to  let  men  truthfully  say  o[ 
you,  "  He  is  a  preacher,  but  no  pastor  ;  "  or,  "  He  is 
a  pastor,  but  no  preacher."  Be  both  ;  for  3'ou  can- 
not really  be  one  unless  you  also  are  the  other. 

Of  the  pastor's  function  considered  by  itself  there 
is,  I  think,  but  very  little  to  be  said.  I  count  of  little 
worth  all  sets  of  rules,  all  teaching  directly  on  the 
subject.  The  books  that  teach  a  pastor's  duty  except 
in  the  way  of  the  most  general  suggestion  are  almost 
worthless.  They  have  the  fault  which  belongs  to 
uU  books  on  behavior,  whicli  are  needless  for  those 
who  do  behave  well  and  useless  for  those  wdio  'do  not. 
The  powers  of  the  pastor's  success  are  truth  and  sym- 
pathy together.  "Speaking  the  truth  in  Love,"  ia 
the  golden  text  to  write  in  the  book  where  you  keep 


78  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  names  of  your  people,  so  that  you  may  read  it 
every  time  j'ou  go  to  visit  them.  Sympathy  without 
truth  makes  a  plausible  pastor,  but  one  whose  hold 
on  a  parish  soon  grows  weak.  Men  feel  his  touch 
upon  them  soft  and  tender,  but  never  vigorous  and 
strong.  Truth  without  sympathy  makes  the  sort  of 
pastor  whom  people  say  that  they  respect  but  to 
whom  they  seldom  go  and  whom  they  seldom  care  to 
Bee  coming  to  them.  But  where  the  two  unite,  so 
far  as  the  two  unite  in  you,  I  think  there  will  be 
nothing  that  will  surprise  you  more  than  to  discover 
how  certain  their  power  is.  The  man  who  has  them 
cannot  help  saying  the  right  word  at  the  right  time. 
You  go  to  some  poor  crushed  and  broken  heart ;  you 
tell  what  truth  you  know,  the  truth  of  the  ever  ready 
and  inexhaustible  forgiveness,  the  truth  of  the  unut- 
terable love,  the  truth  of  the  unbroken  life  of  im- 
mortality; and  you  let  the  sorrow  for  that  heart's 
sorrow  which  you  truly  feel,  utter  itself  in  whatever 
true  and  simple  ways  it  will ;  then  you  come  away 
sick  at  heart  because  you  have  so  miserably  failed  ; 
but  by  and  by  you  find  that  you  \\\\\v  not  failed, 
that  you  really  did  bring  elevation  and  comfort. 
You  cannot  help  doing  it  if  you  go  with  truth  and 
Bympathy,  This  is  the  constant  experien -e  of  the 
minister.  This  is  the  ground  of  confidence  and  hope 
with  which  he  presses  on  from  year  to  yeai 

I  am  inclined  to  think,  ivs  1  have  already  intimated, 


THE  PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  'fS 

that  the  trouble  of  much  of  our  pastoral  work  is  ir. 
its  pettiness.  It  is  pitched  in  too  low  a  key.  li 
tries  to  meet  the  misfortunes  of  life  with  comfort  and 
not  with  inspiration,  offering  inducements  to  patience 
and  the  suggestions  of  compensation  in  this  life  or 
another  which  lies  beyond,  rather  than  imparting 
that  higher  and  stronger  tone  which  will  make  men 
despise  their  sorrows  and  bear  them  easily  in  their 
search  for  truth  and  nobleness,  and  the  release  that 
comes  from  foi-getfulness  of  self  and  devotion  to  the 
needs  of  other  people.  The  truest  help  which  one 
can  render  to  a  man  who  has  any  of  the  inevitable 
burdews  of  life  to  carry  is  not  to  take  his  burden  off 
but  to  call  out  his  best  strength  that  he  may  be  able 
to  bear  it.  The  pastorship  of  Jesus  is  characterize(l 
everywhere  by  its  frankness  and  manliness.  He  meets 
Isieodeinus  with  a  staggering  assertion  of  the  higher 
needs  of  the  spirit.  The  man  who  wants  the  inher- 
itance divided  is  encountered  with  a  strong  rebuke 
of  his  presumptuous  selfishness.  And  Simon  Peter 
has  the  assurance  of  his  forgiveness  offered  him  in  a 
demand  for  work.  All  three  of  these  instances  and 
many  others  are  richly  suggestive  of  contrasts  with 
what  many  of  the  ministers  of  Christ  would  do  in  the 
game  circumstances.  It  is  the  utter  absence  ef  sen- 
timentality in  Christ's  relations  with  men  that  makes 
bis  tenderness  so  exquisitely  touching.  It  is  in  the 
power,    even    in    the   effort,   to   awake    the    stronger 


80       LECTURES   ON  PRE  ACHING. 

nature  of  mankind  that  our  modern  pastorship  is  apt 
to  be  deficient.  It  ministers  to  women  more  tlian  to 
men.  It  tries  to  soothe  with  eonsohition  more  than 
to  fire  witli  ambition  or  to  sting  witli  shame. 

Perhaps  there  will  be  no  better  place  than  this  for 
me  to  say  that  it  is  in  the  absence  of  the  heroic  el- 
ement that  our  current  Christianity  most  falls  short 
of  the  Christianity  of  Gospel  times.  We  keep  still  the 
heroic  language,  but  does  it  not  often  suggest  strange 
incongruities  ?  Have  not  the  pictures  of  souie  of  our 
hymns,  for  instance,  seemed  sometimes  strangely  out 
of  keeping  with  the  lips  that  sang  theui  ?  A  row  of 
lomfortable,  self-contented,  conservative  gentlemen 
and  ladies  standing  up,  for  instance,  and  singing 
"  Onward,  Christian  soldiers  marching  as  to  war,"  or 
"  Hold  the  fort  for  I  am  coming,  Jesus  signals  still," 
reminds  us  all  the  more  of  how  unmilitary  and  un- 
heroic  are  the  lives  they  live.  It  is  not  the  mere  dif- 
ference of  dress.  I  doubt  not  the  Christians  in  the 
Catacombs,  or  the  colliers  who  listened  to  Whitefield 
wlien  he  preached  at  Bristol,  might  have  sang  hymns 
that  were  built  on  the  same  imagery,  and  nothing  in- 
congruous would  have  been  suggested.  And  yet  they 
were  as  evidently  nu'u  of  peace  as  are  our  congrega- 
'.ions.  But  they  were  conscious  of  and  showed  the 
true  inlenseness  of  spiritual  warfare.  They  knew  the 
fight  within,  the  terrible  reality  of  the  enemy,  the  ter- 
rible suspense  of  tlie  struggle,  the  glorious  delight  o/ 


THE  PREACHER   IN   HIS    WORK.  81 

fci'iumph.  No,  it  is  tbe  uiiheroic  character  erf  mod 
ern  life  and  especially  of  modern  Christianity.  The 
life  of  Jesus  Christ  was  radical.  It  went  to  the  deep 
roots  of  things.  It  claimed  men's  noblest  and  freest 
action.  We,  if  we  are  his  ministers,  must  bring  the 
heroic  into  the  unheroic  life  of  men,  demanding  of 
them  truth,  breadth,  braver}'-,  self-sacrifice,  the  free- 
dom from  conventionalities  and  an  elevation  to  high 
standards  of  thought  and  life.  We  must  bring  men's 
life  up  to  Him  and  not  bring  Him  down  to  men's 
life.    This  is  the  Christian  pastor's  privilege  and  duty. 

It  seems  to  me  that  a  large  part  of  the  troubles 
and  mistakes  of  our  pastoral  life  come  from  our  hav- 
ing too  high  an  estimate  of  men's  present  condition 
and  too  low  an  estimate  of  their  possibility.  If  this 
be  true,  then  what  we  need  to  make  us  better  pastors 
is  more  of  the  Gospel  which  reveals  at  once  man's 
imperfect  condition  and  his  infinite  hope.  Jesus  was 
the  perfect  pastor  in  the  way  in  which  He  showed 
men  what  they  were  and  what  they  might  become. 
He  never  deceived  and  never  discouraged  them.  The 
contact  with  His  perfect  humanity  brought  them  at 
once  shame  and  hope.  And  when  He  comes  near  to 
us  now,  when  His  Spirit  does  His  appointed  work  of 
taking  Him  and  showing  Him  to  us,  the  same  power, 
combined  of  shame  and  hope,  comes  into  our  lives. 
Let  that  be  the  model  of  our  pastorship. 

But   to   return   more   definitely   to   preaching.     I 


82  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

think  that  one  of  the  preliminary  considerations 
jiboiit  it  —  one  characteristic  of  it  so  prominent  that 
we  are  sure  that  He  who  sent  men  out  to  pr<:ach 
must  have  designed  it  —  is  that  which  I  have  already 
once  alluded  to,  the  pleasure  that  belongs  to  it,  the 
way  in  which  it  thoroughly  interests  the  best  par-cs 
of  the  man  who  does  it.  I  remember,  ;is  I  recur  to  it, 
how  much  I  have  already  said  about  it,  and  may  have 
yet  to  say;  but  it  is  much  upon  my  mind.  For  I 
think  there  is  something  unhappy  in  the  frequency 
with  which  ministers  dwell  upon  their  work  as  if  it 
were  full  of  hardships  and  disappointments.  Every 
.power  of  man  which  has  its  natural  and  legitimate 
pui-pose  brings  two  pleasures,  one  in  the  anticipation 
and  attainment  of  its  end,  the  other  in  its  own  exer- 
cise. There  is  a  delijjht  in  exercisinjj  faculties  as 
well  as  in  doing  work,  and  in  all  the  best  activities  uf 
men  the  two  will  go  together.  This  is  all  true  of 
preaching.  Its  highest  joy  is  in  the  great  ambition 
that  is  set  before  it,  the  glorifying  of  the  Lord  and 
the  saving  of  the  souls  of  men.  No  other  joy  on 
earth  compares  with  that.  The  ministr\'  that  does 
not  feel  that  joy  iy  dead.  Rut  in  behind  that  highest 
joy,  beating  in  humble  unison  with  it,  as  the  healthy 
body  thrills  in  sympathy  witt  the  deep  thoughts  and 
pure  desires  of  tlie  mind  and  soul,  the  l)('st  ministries 
have  always  been  conscious  o  another  pleasure  which 
oolonged  to  the  very  doing  ( f  the  work  itself.     As 


THE  PREACHER  IN  HIS   WORK.  82 

we  read  the  lives  of  all  the  most  effective  preachera 
of  the  past,  or  as  we  meet  the  men  who  are  powerful 
preachers  of  the  Word  to-day,  we  feel  how  certainly 
and  how  deeply  the  very  exercise  of  their  ministry 
delights  them.  The  best  sermons  always  seem  to 
carry  the  memory  of  the  excited  spring  or  quiet  hap- 
piness, with  which  they  are  written  or  uttered.  The 
soldier  enjoys  the  battle  as  well  as  the  victory.  The 
carpenter  enjoys  the  saw  and  plane  as  well  as  the 
prospect  of  the  full-built  house.  When  Wilberforce 
heard  of  Macaulay's  first  offer  of  a  chance  oi  public 
life,  he  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and  then  liis  face 
lighted  up  and  he  clapped  his  hand  to  his  ear  and 
cried,  "Ah,  I  hear  that  shout  again.  Hear!  Hear! 
What  a  life  it  was ! "  In  the  case  of  the  preacher 
this  secondary  pleasure,  if  I  may  call  it  so,  consists  in 
the  enjoyment  of  close  i-elationship  with  fellow-men 
and  in  the  orator's  delight  in  moving  men.  The  fas- 
tidious man  or  the  cold  man  loses  a  great  deal  of  the 
stimulus  and  unfading  freshness  of  the  ministry. 
Sometimes  this  pleasure  grows  very  keen.  I  always 
remember  one  special  afternoon,  years  ago,  when  the 
light  faded  from  the  room  where  I  was  preaclnng  and 
the  faces  melted  together  into  a  unit  as  of  one  impres 
Bive  pleading  man,  and  I  felt  them  listening  when 
I  could  hardly  see  them ;  I  remember  this  accidental 
day  as  one  of  the  times  when  the  sense  of  the  privi- 
lege of   having  to  do  with  people  as  their  preaciiei 


84  LECTURES   ON  PREACILXG. 

camu  out  almost  overpoweringly.  It  is  good  to  tn-as* 
ure  all  such  enjoyment  of  the  actual  work  of  preach- 
ing. It  bridges  over  the  times  when  the  higher  en- 
thusiasm flags,  and  it  gives  a  deeper  delight  to  it 
when  it  is  strongest. 

I  think  that  as  we  study  tlie  preaching  of  Jesus 
we  admire  above  almost  everything  the  way  in  which 
He  was  at  once  the  Leader  and  the  Brother  of  the 
men  He  taught.  He  spake  as  one  having  authority 
always,  but  always  His  power  was  brought  near  to 
men  by  the  complete  way  in  which  He  made  Himself 
one  of  them,  by  the  evident  reality  with  which  He 
bore  their  sins  and  carried  their  sorrows.  So  that  by 
as  much  as  the  Son  of  God  was  above  men  in  His 
nature,  by  so  much  the  more  He  came  near  to  them 
in  his  sympathies  and  was  a  truer  Son  of  Man 
than  any  of  the  wonderfully  human  prophets  of  the 
Old  Testament,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  or  Ezekiel,  to  whom 
the  same  name  is  constantly  applied.  Now  wiien  we 
compare  the  ordinary  preacher's  life  with  that  of  Je- 
sus, I  think  we  see  how  much  more  apt  he  is,  to 
have  kept  the  position  of  leader  than  the  position  of 
brother  of  the  people.  At  any  rate,  what  we  miss 
in  a  great  doal  of  our  preacliing  is  that  beautiful 
blending  of  the  two  wIkjsc  jjower  we  recognize  in  the 
word  and  work  of  Jesus.  We  are  the  leaders  of  the 
people.  Woe  to  our  preaching  if  in  any  feeble,  false 
humility  we    abdicate  that  place.     The  people  pass 


THE  PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  85 

us  by  and  pity  us  if  they  see  ns  standing  in  our  pul- 
pits saying,  "  We  know  nothing  particular  about  these 
things  whereof  we  preach ;  we  have  no  authority ; 
only  come  here  and  we  will  tell  you  what  we  think, 
and  you  shall  tell  us  what  you  think,  and  so  perhaps 
together  we  can  strike  out  a  little  light."  That  is 
not  preaching.  There  has  been  pulpit  talk  like  that, 
and  men  have  always  passed  it  by  and  hurried  on  to 
find  some  one  who  at  least  pretended  to  tell  them  the 
will  of  God.  No,  the  preacher  must  be  a  leader,  but 
his  leadership  must  be  bound  in  with  his  brother-  -^ 
hood.  It  was  as  Man  that  Christ  led  men  to  God. 
It  must  be  as  men  that  we  carry  on  the  work  of 
Christ  and  help  men's  souls  to  Him,  This  truth 
seems  to  me  to  lie  at  the  bottom  of  all  the"  best  suc- 
cesses, and  the  forgetf ukiess  of  it  at  the  bottom  of  all 
the  worst  failures  of  the  ministry.  There  is  no  real 
leadership  of  people  for  a  preacher  or  a  pastor  except 
that  which  comes  as  the  leadership  of  the  Incarnation 
came,  by  a  thorough  entrance  into  the  lot  of  those 
whom  one  would  lead. 

And  again,  the  limits  of  the  preacher's  leadership 
are  very  clear,  and  it  is  necessary  that  the  yonng 
minister  should  know  them.  Sometimes  a  preacher 
finds  himself  —  and  oftener  still,  some  foolish  frienda 
bj  his  side  will  make  him  think  himself  —  one  of  the 
wisest  men,  perhaps  the  wisest  man  in  his  small  cir- 
^e  upon  any  of  the  ordinary  topics  of  thought,  upon 


S^  LECTURES   UN  PREACHING. 

art,  or  politics,  or  letters,  or  education.  It  is  good 
for  him  to  use  his  wisdom  as  it  is  for  any  other  man. 
It  is  wrong  for  him  to  leave  his  wisdom  unused  as  it 
is  for  any  other  man.  He  may  do  much  good  to' the 
people,  he  may  indirectly  help  his  own  peculiar  mis- 
Bion  by  sharing  his  knowledge  with  them.  One  of 
the  most  interesting  pages  of  clerical  life  of  Avhich  I 
know  is  Norman  Macleod's  account  of  his  lectures  to 
the  weavers  at  Newmilns,  on  geolog)\  Would  that 
more  of  us  were  able  to  follow  his  example.  All  that 
is  well ;  but  we  must  know  that  there  is  nothing  in 
our  quality  as  preachers  that  gives  us  any  claim  to  be 
authoritative  guides  to  men  in  any  of  those  things, 
neither  in  politics,  nor  in  education,  nor  in  science. 
On  one  thing  only  we  may  speak  with  authority,  and 
that  is  the  will  of  God.  Nor  even  in  the  details  of 
religious  thought  need  we  aspire  to  be  their  guides. 
I  do  not  want  —  and  certainly  I  know  that  if  I  did 
want  I  never  should  be  able  —  to  make  the  people  who 
listen  to  me  accept  every  view  of  Christian  truth 
which  I  utter  before  them.  I  have  no  reason  to 
believe  that  what  I  utter  is  clothed  with  an  infalli- 
bility. In  much  of  what  one  preaches  he  is  satisfied 
if  men  take  home  what  he  says  as  the  utterance  of 
one  who  has  thought  upon  the  subject  of  which  he 
speaks  and  wishes  them  to  think  and  judge.  Surely 
he  does  not  declare  to  them  his  belief  about  the 
method  of  the   atonement,  with    the   same   authoril> 


THE  PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  87 

with  which  he  bids  them  repent  of  sin,  and  warn? 
hhem  that  without  holiness  no  man  shall  see  tbo 
IvfOrd.  Such  line  of  difference  every  true  preacher 
draws,  and  freely  lets  men  see  where  it  runs.  If 
you  attempt  to  claim  authority  for  all  your  specula- 
tions you  will  end  by  losing  it  for  your  most  sure 
and  solemn  declarations  of  God's  will. 

One  difficulty  of  the  preacher's  office  is  its  sub- 
jection to  flippant  gossip,  along  with  its  exemption  ^ 
from  severe  and  healthy  criticism.  There  are  people 
enough  always  to  find  out  a,  minister's  little  faults, 
and  let  him  hear  of  them ;  but  it  is  wonderful  how 
he  can  go  on  year  after  year,  without  being  once 
brought  up  to  the  judgment-seat  of  sound  intelli- 
gence, and  hearing  what  is  the  real  worth  of  the 
words  that  he  is  saying,  and  the  work  that  he  is 
doing.  There  are  plenty  of  people  to  do  for  him 
the  office  of  the  man  whom  Philip  of  Macedon  kept 
in  his  service,  to  tell  him  every  day  before  he  gave 
audience,  "  Philip,  remember  thou  art  mortal,"  but 
hardly  ever  does  he  meet  that  sound  and  prompt 
investigation  of  his  special  work  which  comes  to  the 
author  from  his  public,  or  the  lawyer  from  his  judge. 
This  makes  for  many  men  the  worst  possible  condi- 
tion to  labor  in  —  a  constant  fretting  by  small  .cavils, 
and  no  large  estimation  of  the  whole.  It  is  like 
standing  in  a  desultory  dropping  fire  without  being 
allowed  to  plunge  into  the  battle,  and  settle  at  once 


88  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

llie  question  of  life  or  death.  It  makes  siiprenidly 
essential  to  the  minister  that  independence  of  men's 
judgments  whicli  can  only  come  by  the  most  absolute 
dependence  on  the  judgment  of  the  Lord,  by  living 
"  ever  in  the  great  Taskmaster's  eye." 

I  should  have  liked  to  speak  of  one  other  danger 
of  the  preacher  from  his  work.  It  is  that  which 
conies  from  the  paralysis  of  great  ideas.  There  are 
times  when  the  vast  thoughts  of  God  stimulate  us  to 
action.  There  are  other  times  when  they  seem  to 
take  all  power  of  action  out  of  us.  These  last  times 
gi'ow  very  frequent  with  some  men,  till  you  have  the 
race  of  clerical  visionaries  who  think  vast,  dim,  vague 
thouglits,  and  do  no  work.  It  is  a  danger  of  all  ar- 
dent minds.  The  only  salvation,  if  one  finds  himself 
verging  to  it,  is  an  misparing  rule  that  no  idea,  how- 
ever abstract,  shall  be  ever  counted  as  satisfactorily 
received  and  grasped  till  it  has  opened  to  us  its  prac- 
tical side  and  helped  us  somehow  in  our  work.  The 
spirit  of  practicalness  is  the  consecration  of  the  whole 
man,  even  the  most  ideal  and  visionary  parts  of  him, 
to  the  work  of  life. 

With  regard  to  the  second  point  of  whicli  I  spoke, 
the  methods  of  the  preacher's  work,  there  are  two  dif- 
ficulties which  beset  us  :  one  is  the  absence  of  method, 
and  the  other  is  the  tendency  to  wrong  methods.  Let 
mo  say  a  few  words  to  you  on  each  of  tl  ese. 


THE  PREACHER    IN  HIS    WORK.  89 

There  is  a  certain  air  of  spontaneousness,  a  certain 
dislike  of  rule  and  system  which  belongs  to  a  great 
many  ministers'  fundamental  conception  of  the  work 
of  preaching.  Rightly  studied  and  weighed,  no  doubt, 
the  teachings  of  Christ  and  of  the  whole  New  Testa- 
ment all  look  one  way.  They  all  involve  the  simple 
truth  that  he  who  works  for  God  must  work  with  hia 
best  power's  •  and  since  among  the  effective  powers 
of  man  the  powers  of  jDlan  and  arrangement  stand 
very  high,  the  whole  of  the  New  Testament  really 
implies  that  he  Avho  preaches  must  lay  out  the  meth- 
ods and  ways  of  preaching,  as  a  merchant  or  a  soldier 
lays  out  a  campaign  of  the  market  or  the  battle-field. 
But  at  the  same  time  there  are  many  passages  in 
the  New  Testament  which  seem  to  have  in  them 
something  like  a  promise  of  immediate  inspiration. 
Chi'ist  bids  His  disciples  :  "  Settle  it,  therefore,  in 
your  hearts  not  to  meditate  before  what  ye  shall 
answer.  For  I  will  give  you  a  mouth  and  wisdom 
which  all  your  adversaries  shall  not  be  able  to  gain- 
say nor  resist."  These  words,  and  others  like  them, 
were  spoken  indeed  to  certain  disciples,  and  in  view 
of  certain  special  emergencies  of  their  life ;  but,  with 
our  vague  unscientific  notions  about  inspiration,  they 
have  been  easily  appropriated  by  many  a  poor  un- 
inspired creature  who  has  found  himself  the  subject 
of  ordination ;  and  a  general  impression  of  the  piety 
%i  exteraporaneousness  has  spread  more  widely  and 


90  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

reached  more  tlioviglitful  and  intelligent  men  than  we 
Buppose.  I  think,  too,  that  the  revolt  of  Protestant- 
ism against  the  minute  and  overstrained  organization 
of  the  Romish  Church  has  had  very  much  to  do  with 
the  creation  of  that  distrust  of  methodicalness  which 
prevails  so  largely  among  preachers.  However  it  haa 
come  about,  the  fact  is  clear  enough.  Look  at  the 
way  in  which  the  pulpit  teaches.  I  venture  to  say 
that  there  is  nothing  so  unreasonable  in  any  other 
branch  of  teaching.  You  are  a  minister,  and  you  are 
to  instruct  these  people  in  the  truths  of  God,  to  bring 
God's  message  to  them.  All  the  vast  range  of  God's 
revelation  and  of  man's  duty  is  open  to  you.  And 
how  do  you  proceed  ?  If  you  are  like  most  minis- 
ters there  is  no  order,  no  progress,  no  consecutive 
purpose  in  your  teaching.  You  never  begin  at  the 
beginning  and  proceed  step  by  step  to  the  end  of 
any  course  of  orderly  instruction.  You  float  over  the 
whole  sea  of  truth,  and  plunge  here  and  there,  like  a 
gull,  on  any  subject  that  either  suits  your  mood,  or 
that  some  casual  aiid  superficial  intercourse  with  peo- 
ple makes  you  conceive  to  be  required  by  a  popular 
need.  No  other  instruction  ever  was  given  so.  No 
hearer  has  the  least  idea,  as  he  goes  to  your  church, 
wluit  you  will  preach  to  him  about  that  day.  It  is 
hopeless  for  him  to  try  to  get  ready  for  your  teach- 
ing. I  am  sure  that  I  may  s;iy  (I  suppose  that  this 
is  partly  the  reason  why  as  an  Episcopalian  I  h;>v« 


rilE   PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  91 

been  asked  to  lecture  here)  that  I  rejoice  to  see  in 
many  churches  outside  our  own  that  to  wliich  we  owe 
so  much  as  a  help  to  the  orderliness  of  preaching,  the 
observance  of  a  church  year  with  its  commemorative 
festivals,  growing  so  largely  common.  It  still  leaves 
largest  liberty.  It  is  no  bondage  within  which  any 
man  is  hampered.  But  the  great  procession  of  the 
year,  sacred  to  our  best  human  instincts  with  the  ac- 
cumulated reverence  of  ages,  —  Advent,  Christmas, 
Epiphany,  Good  Friday,  Easter,  Ascension,  Whit- 
sunday,—  leads  those  who  walk  in  it,  at  least  once 
every  year,  past  all  the  great  Christian  facts,  and, 
however  careless  and  selfish  be  the  preacher,  will  not 
leave  it  in  his  power  to  keep  them  from  his  people. 
The  Church  year,  too,  preserves  the  personality  of  our 
religion.  It  is  concrete  and  picturesque.  The  his- 
torical Jesus  is  forever  there.  It  lays  each  life  con- 
tinually down  beside  the  perfect  life,  that  it  may  see 
at  once  its  imperfection  and  its  hope. 

But  not  to  dwell  any  longer  on  this  special  in- 
stance, the  order  and  course  of  preaching,  the  'same 
absence  of  method  is  apt  to  show  itself  everywhere 
in  a  preacher's  life.  Beside  the  reasons  for  it  which 
I  have  already  suggested,  it  comes  from  a  feeble  sense 
of  responsibility.  The  mental  and  the  moral  matures 
Have  closer  connections  than  very  often  we  allow  them, 
and  traita  which  we  think  wholly  intellectual  are  con- 
stantly revealing  to  us  moral  bases  upon  which  they 


92  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

rest.  We  talk  of  clearness,  for  instance,  as  if  it  -rere 
pnrel}^  a  quality  of  style,  but  clearness  in  ovei-y  speech 
addressed  to  men  comes  out  of  sympathy,  which  is  a 
moral  quality.  So  force  implies  conviction.  And  so 
the  truest  method  involves  conscientiousness.  The 
intellectual  and  the  spiritual  belonq;  together.  Losri- 
cal  arrangement  of  thought  has  real  connection  with 
a  sincere  desire  to  do  right.  The  more  you  mean  to 
do  all  the  right,  the  more  clearly  your  whole  thinking 
processes  will  dispose  themselves,  and  then,  by  tiie 
law  of  reaction,  your  orderly  thinking  will  make  it 
easier  for  you  to  do  riglit.  That  which  all  men  ought 
to  remember,  it  behooves  the  minister  more  than  all 
men  not  to  forget,  how  closely  the  mental  and  moral 
natures  are  bound  together  in  their  characters  and 
destinies. 

On  this  high  ground,  and  on  a  ground  that  perhaps 
is  lower  but  still  is  sound,  I  urge  upon  you  the  need 
of  method  and  order  in  your  life  and  work.  Do  not 
be  tempted  by  the  fascination  of  spontaneousness. 
Do  not  be  misled  by  any  delusion  of  inspiration.  The 
lower  ground  is  the  support  which  well-considered 
and  settled  mctiiods  of  operation  give  to  the  higher 
powers  ill  their  weaker  moments.  No  one  di-eada 
mechanical  woodenness  in  the  ministry  more  than  I 
do.  And  yot  a  strong  wooden  strnctuie  running 
through  your  work,  a  set  of  well-framed  and  well- 
jointed  habits  abcut  times  and  ways  of  work,  writing, 


THE   PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  9S 

Studying,  intercourse  with  people,  the  administration 
of  charity  and  education,  and  the  proportions  between 
the  different  departments  of  clerical  labor,  is  again 
and  again  the  bridge  over  which  the  minister  walks 
where  the  solid  ground  of  higher  motive  fails  him  for 
a  time.  Routine  is  a  terrible  master,  but  she  is  a  ser- 
vant whom  we  can  hardly  do  without.  Routine  as  a 
law  is  deadly.  Routine  as  a  resource  in  the  temporary 
exhaustion  of  impulse  and  suggestion  is  often  our  sal- 
vation.     Coleridge  told  the  story  when  he  sang,  — 

"  There  will  come  a  weary  day 
When,  overtaxed  at  length, 
Both  hope  and  love  beneath 
The  weight  give  way. 
Then  with  a  statue's  smile, 
A  statue's  strength, 
Patieuco,  nothing  loth, 
And  uncomplaiuiug,  does 
The  work  of  both." 

But  patience,  while  a  strong  power,  is  not  "qui  jk- 
sio-hted,  and  works  in  ways  and  habits  which  havo 
been  made  before. 

Of  mistakes  of  method  as  distinguished  from  ab- 
sence of  method  in  the  ministry,  experience  has 
seemed  to  me  to  show  that  there  is  one  comprehensive 
dead  under  which  a  wonderfully  large  proportion  of 
them  all  may  be  included.  It  is  the  passion  for  ex- 
pedients. I  know  of  no  department  of  htnnan  activ- 
ity, from  the  governing  of  a  great  nation  to  the  doc- 


94  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

toring  of  a  little  body,  where  the  disposition  is  ,.ol 
constantly  appearing  to  invent  some  stultlcMi  method 
or  to  seek  some  magical  and  concise  prescription 
vhich  sliall  obviate  the  need  of  careful,  comprehen- 
£-ve  study  and  long-continued  application.  But  thia 
disposition  is  nowhere  so  strong,  I  think,  as  in  the  min- 
istry. The  bringing  of  truth,  of  Christ  the  Truth, 
to  man,  of  the  whole  Christ  to  the  whole  man,  you 
.VAw  think  of  no  work  larger  in  its  idea  than  that. 
And  evidently  its  methods  must  be  as  manifold  as  are 
the  natures  with  which  it  deals.  liut  we  are  con- 
stantly meeting  people  who  seem  to  have  epitomized 
all  the  needs  of  the  Church,  all  the  requirements  of 
the  successful  minister,  into  some  one  expedient,  some 
panacea  which,  if  it  could  only  be  applied,  would 
overcome  every  obstacle  and  bring  on  at  once  the  per- 
fect day  of  preaching.  These  expedients  are  things 
good  in  themselves,  making  no  doubt  some  very  use- 
ful part  of  the  great  whole  ;  but  when  tht-y  are  mag- 
nified into  solitary  importance  and  offered  as  solutions 
of  the  difficulties  that  beset  the  Gospel,  the}^  are  ludi- 
crously insuflficient.  Many  a  young  minister  to-day 
is  staking  his  whole  ministry  on  some  one  such  idea. 
He  attributes  every  defect  to  the  imperfect  apprehen- 
8i(jn  of  that  idea  in  his  community.  He  hopes  for 
every  good  as  that  idea  comes  to  be  completely  real- 
ized. He  can  expect  no  good  without  it.  He  can 
bardly  conceive   of   any  evil   in    connection   with   it, 


THE  PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  95 

Perhaps  Ins  favorite  idea  is  free  churches ;  a  goo3 
idea  indeed,  an  idea  without  which  there  could  have 
been  no  Christian  church  at  all ;  an  idea  wliicli  be- 
yond all  doubt  does  represent  the  standard  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  to  which  Christiiin  practice  must  some 
day  return ;  but  by  no  means  the  only  idea  of  wor- 
ship, nor  suggesting  by  any  means  the  only  or  the 
principal  difficulty  in  the  way  of  spreading  the  Gospel. 
You  might  break  down  everj'^  pew  door  and  abolish 
every  pew  tax  and  yet  wait  to  see  your  churches  ami 
the  kingdom  of  God  fill  themselves  full  in  vain.  An- 
other's consuming  thought  is  congregational  singing. 
As  you  listen  to  him  rushing  hither  and  thither  shout- 
ing the  praises  of  his  favorite  method  and  dealing 
dreadful  blows  at  the  four-headed  Cerberus  which  hg 
detests,  you  are  almost  ready  to  believe  that  if  all 
the  people  only  could  lift  up  their  voices  and  sing  the 
walls  of  wickedness  must  tumble  into  dust.  It  is  a 
good  and  healthy  agitation.  It  is  well  that  we  should 
break  through  the  tyranny  of  old  methods  and  really 
sing  the  praises  of  the  Lord.  But  it  is  not  going  to 
do  the  work  of  casting  out  sin  and  winning  righteous- 
ness. When  the  army  goes  into  battle  the  bands 
must  play,  but  they  do  not  lead  the  host.  And  so  it 
is  again  with  the  hobby  of  interdenominational  inter- 
course, of  Christian  union.  It  is  well,  and  I  would 
ihat  we  had  more  of  it.  But,  to  borrow  the  army 
simile   again,  no  courtesies  between   two   regiments 


9C  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

ever  yet  defeated  the  other  iiriny.  And  so  of  the 
church  sociiible  which  tries  to  entice  the  passer-by  to 
the  altar  of  the  Lord  witli  tlie  familiar  but  feeble 
odor  of  a  cup  of  tea.  And  so  with  the  children's 
cliurch  ;  one  of  the  best  and  purest  of  the  Church's 
inventions  for  her  work,  but  by  no  means  enough  to 
make  a  sj)ecial  and  peculiar  feature  of  in  any  congre- 
gation. It  almost  always  weakens  the  preacher  for 
his  preaching  to  adults.  There  is  nothing  so  insig- 
nificant that  some  petty  minister  will  not  make  it  the 
Christian  panacea.  A  young  pastor  said  to  me  once, 
"Wherever  else  I  fail,  there  is  one  point  in  which  my 
ministry  will  be  a  success."  "And  what  is  that?" 
said  I,  expecting  something  sweet  and  spiritual.  "  In 
printing,"  he  replied.  He  had  devoted  himself  to 
setting  forth  elaborate  advertisements,  and  orders  of 
services,  and  Sunday-school  reward  cards,  and  most 
complicated  parish  records,  and  I  suppose  his  parish 
is  strewn  thick  with  tlmso  thick-falling  leaves  unto 
this  day.  No!  The  clerical  or  parish  hobby  is  either 
tli(!  fancy  of  a  man  who  has  failed  to  apprehend  the 
grt'at  work  of  the  Gospel,  or  the  refuge  of  a  man  who 
has  failed  to  do  it.  Its  evils  are  endless.  It  makes  a 
fantastic  Christianity.  It  keeps  us  battering  at  one 
point  in  the  long  citadel  of  sin  and  lets  the  enemy 
safel}'  concentrate  all  his  force  there  to  protect  it.  It 
robs  us  of  iill  j>ower  of  large  appeal  and  confines  the 
tru'h  which  we  preach  to  some  small  class  of  people. 


THE  PREjiCHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  97 

It  makes  us  exalt  llie  means  above  the  e.ud,  till  we 
come  to  count  the  means  precious,  whether  it  attain 
the  end  or  not.  That  is  the  death  which  many  a  par- 
ish life  has  died.     As  George  Herbert  has  it,  — 

"  What  wretcheduess  can  give  liini  any  room 
Whose  house  is  foul  while  he  adores  his  broom  ?  " 

But  finall)^  and  worst  of  all,  the  passion  for  expe 
dients  and  panaceas  narrows  our  standards  of  Chris- 
tian life,  and  gives  us  false  tests  of  what  are  Chris- 
tians. It  is  possible  to  come  to  think  that  there  can 
be  no  conversion  in  a  rented  pew  ;  and  that  God  will 
not  hear  the  music  of  a  choir,  however  devoutly  it 
bears  the  praises  of  the  people  up  to  Him.  Beware 
of  hobbies.  Fasten  yourself  to  the  centre  of  your 
ministry  ;  not  to  some  point  on  its  circumference. 
The  circumference  must  move  when  the  centre  moves. 
The  escape  from  the  slavery  of  expedients  is  not 
in  finding  each  one  insufficient,  and  so  changing  it  for 
another.  The  escape  from  despotism  is  never  in  a 
mere  change  of  despots.  Some  men's  ministr}^  has 
been  occupied  all  through  in  the  substitution  of  hobby 
for  hobb}'  year  after  year.  Their  histoiy  is  made  up 
of  th*^  record  of  the  dynasties  of  successive  expe- 
flients,  following  each  other  like  the  later  Eni])erors, 
each  murdering  his  predecessor  and  murdered  in  his 
turn.  The  escape  must  come  in  a  larger  human  life 
for  the  minister.     He  must  come  into  larger  knowledge 


98  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

of  men,  and  be  in  the  truest  and  best  seifse  a  man  ol 
tlie  world.  He  must  get  out  of  the  merely  ecclesi;ia- 
tical  spirit;  that  is,  he  must  cease  to  think  of  the 
Church  as  a  petty  institution,  to  be  carried  on  by  fan- 
tastic methods  of  its  own.  It  must  seem  to  him  what 
it  is,  the  type  and  pattern  of  what  humanity  ought  to 
be,  so  to  be  kept  large  enough  that  any  man,  comiuf^ 
from  any  exile  where  the  homesickness  of  his  heart 
has  been  awakcjied,  may  find  his  true  and  native  place 
awaiting  him.  The  preacher  then  will  know  all  kinds 
of  men,  keeping  his  life  large  enough  to  enter  into 
Bympathy  with  them.  Let  me  make  one  special  re- 
mark upon  this  head.  Apart  from  its  incidental  ad- 
vantage, to  his  style  and  nuinuer,  I  think  it  is  good 
for  a  minister  to  do  some  work  besides  clerical  work, 
and  to  write  somethincj  besides  sermons.  But  he 
must  do  it  as  a  minister.  And  the  proof  of  how  large 
is  his  vocation,  is  that  he  can  do  it  and  yet  be  a  min- 
ister in  it  all.  He  can  write  books,  and  yet  be  not  a 
literary  man  but  a  minister.  He  can  help  the  gov- 
ernment, and  yet  be  not  a  politician  but  a  minister. 
There  are  bad  ways,  but  there  are  also  good  ways  in 
which  a  clergyman  may  carry  his  clerical  character 
with  him  wherever  he  goes.  It  may  be  to  your  dis- 
?redit,  or  to  your  credit,  that  strangers  say  of  you, 
'*  I  should  know  he  was  a  minister."  For  the  best 
minister  is  simply  the  fullest  man.  You  cannot  sep- 
arate him  from  his  manhood.     Voltaire  said  (tf  Louis 


THE  rilEACHEi.     N  HIS    WORK.  99 

XIV.,  "  He  was  not  one  of  the  greatest  men  but  cer- 
tainly one  of  the  greatest  kings  that  ever  lived."  It 
would  not  be  possible  to  say  that  of  any  minister. 
He  who  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  ministers  must  be 
one  of  the  greatest  of  men. 

The  faults  of  a  minister's  method  are  apt  to  be  of 
the  simplest  sort ;  as  his  virtues  are  of  no  intricate  or 
complicated  kind,  but  the  primai-y  virtues  of  human- 
ity. I  cannot  then  pass  by  what,  after  all,  has  seemed 
to  me  to  lie  at  the  bottom  of  a  very  large  part  of  the 
clerical  failures,  and  half-successes  which  I  have  wit- 
nessed. What  is  called  a  "  success  "  in  the  ministry 
is,  indeed,  a  curious  sort  of  phenomenon,  very  hard 
to  analyze.  It  is  half  cla}^  half  gold.  It  is  half  sec- 
ular and  half  religious,  and  the  two  halves  are  mingled 
so  that  it  is  impossible  to  separate  them.  There  is 
too  much  of  religious  feeling  in  our  communities  to 
call  a  minister  successful  unless  he  seems  to  be  doing 
a  really  spiritual  work,  and  on  the  other  hand  there 
is  too  steady  a  watch  kept  upon  economical  considera- 
tions, to  give  the  praise  of  success  to  mere  spiritual 
devotion,  unless  it  carries  with  it  the  signs  of  material 
prosperity.  The  "  successful  minister  "  is  a  being  of 
such  mingled  qualities  that  he  leaves  open  room 
enough  for  many  men  who  are  not  called  successful, 
to  be  thoroughly  good  and  nobly  useful  and  very 
bapjty.  But  still  this  standard  of  success  has  its  ad- 
vantages.    It  is  intelligible.     And  it  brings  at  once 


100  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

loiwaid  the  simplest  of  ill  causes  of  failure,  and 
shows  it  to  be  the  same  that  brings  failure  in  every 
department  of  life.  That  cause  is  mere  unfaithful- 
ness, the  fact  of  men's  not  doing  their  best  with  the 
I)owers  that  God  has  given  them.  I  think  that  it  is 
hard  to  believe  how  common  this  trouble,  underlying 
all  troubles,  is  in  the  minister's  life.  I  want  to  urge 
it  upon  you  very  earnestly.  You  watch  the  career  of 
some  man  who  does  not  seem  to  succeed.  You  know 
his  piety  ;  you  recognize  his  intelligence  ;  you  make 
all  kinds  of  elaborate  theories  about  what  there  is  in 
his  peculiar  character  that  unfits  him  for  effective- 
ness ;  you  dwell  on  his  fastidiousness,  his  i-eserve,  the 
wonderful  sensitiveness  of  his  nature.  You  picture 
him  to  yourself  writing  exquisite  sermons,  full  of 
thought,  which  the  people  are  too  coarse  to  compre- 
hend. And  then,  Avith  tiiis  jiicture  of  him  in  your 
mind,  yon  come  to  know  the  habits  of  his  life,  and  all 
your  fine-spun  pity  scatters  as  you  learn  that,  what- 
ever other  hindrances  there  may  be,  the  hindrance 
that  lies  uppermost  of  all  is  that  the  man  is  not  do- 
ing his  best.  His  wctrk  is  at  loose  ends  ;  he  treivts  his 
people  with  a  neglect  with  which  no  doctor  could 
treat  his  patients  and  no  lawyer  his  clients;  and  he 
writes  his  sermons  on  Saturday  nights,  'i'hat  hust  I 
count  the  crowning  disgrace  of  a  man's  ministry.  It 
is  dishonest.  It  is  giving  but  the  last  flicker  of  the 
week  as  it  sinks  in  its  socket,  to  those  who,  simply  to 


THE  PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  101 

talk  about  it  as  a  bargain,  have  paid  for  the  full  light 
burning  at  its  brightest.     And  yet  n.en  boast  of  it. 
They  tell  you  in  how  short  time  they  write  their  ser 
mons,  and'when  you  hear  them  preach  you  only  won- 
der  that  it  took  so  long.     Ah  !  my  friends,  it  is  won. 
derful  what  a  central  power  is  the  moral  law.      ihe 
primary  fact  of  duty  lies  at  the  core  of  everything. 
Operations  which  we  think  have  no  moral  character, 
move  by  the  power  which  is  coiled  up  in  that  spring. 
Derange  it  in  any  man,  and  his  taste  becomes  cor- 
rupted, and  his  intellect  suffers  distortion.     The  first 
necessity  for  the  preacher  and  the  hod-earner  is  the 
same.     Be  faithful,  and  do  your  best  always  for  every 
congregation,  and  on  every  occasion.^ 

A  very  curious  study  in  human  nature'  is  the  way 
in  which  the  moral  sense  sometimes  suffers  in  connec- 

1  An  unknown  friend  has  called  my  attention  to  tUe.e  good  word. 
of  Cotton  Mother,  since  this  lecture  was  delivered.  They  are  from 
the  Ratio  Discipline,  pp.  59  and  GO.  ,,,,„„   :„ 

"Hchnrches  hear  of  ministers  boasting  that  they  have  been  m 
their  studies  only  a  few  hours  on  Saturday,  or  so,  they  reckon  that 
Buch  per>ons  rather  glory  in  their  shame.  _ 

"Sudden  sermons  they  may  sometimes  admire  from  their  accom- 
.lished  ministers,  when  the  suddenness  has  not  been  a  chosen  nr- 
;um.tance.  But  as  one  of  old,  when  it  was  objected  agamst  his  public 
speeches  (in  matters  of  less  moment  than  the  salvation  of^  souls),  re- 
plied 'I  should  blush  at  the  incivility  of  treating  so  great  and  wise 
peciple  with  anvthing  but  what  rhall  be  studied; '  so  the  best  mm- 
jcrsof  New  England  o.dinarily  vould  blush  to  add.e.s  thcr  flocks 
without  premeditatiou." 


102      LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

'ion  with  tlie  liigliest  spiritual  experiences.  A  man 
wlio  will  cheat  nowhere  else  will  be  a  hypocrite  in 
.eligion.  A  man  who  really  wants  to  convert  his 
brethren  will  sometimes  try  to  do  it  by  preaching 
other  people's  sermons  as  if  they  were  his  own.  It 
is  partly,  I  suppose,  the  vague  sense  of  elevation 
which  seems  to  have  somewhat  enfeebled  the  hold  of 
the  ordinary  morality  upon  a  man,  as  the  earth's 
gravitation  weakens  for  him  who  mounts  among  tho 
stars.  And  in  some  men  it  is  that  demoralization 
which  comes  from  feeling  themselves  in  a  place  for 
which  they  are  not  fit,  burdened  with  duties  for  which 
they  have  no  capacity.  And  that,  in  political,  or  com- 
mercial, or  clerical  life,  is  the  most  demoralizing  con- 
sciousness that  a  man  can  feel. 

This  question  of  faithfulness  touches,  I  believe, 
almost  all  the  ditlioulties  in  the  way  of  constraint  or 
dictation  which  a  minister  meets  with  from  his  people. 
I  am  apt  to  believe  that  almost  all  the  troubles  be- 
tween ministers  and  parishes  are  from  the  minister's 
folly  if  not  from  his  fault.  Not  that  there  is  not 
often  enough  blame  upon  the  other  side.  But  it 
seems  to  me  reasonable  that  the  minister,  having  an 
intenser  and  more  concentrated  interest  in  his  parish 
than  any  layman  has,  should  have  that  measure  of 
control  which,  wisely  used,  might  hinder  alrLost  any 
trouble  before  it  grew  vigorous  enough  to  enlist  the 
ingry  interest  of  the  people  whose  lives  are  largely 


THE   rnKACIIER   IN  II IS    WORK.  103 

Dcoupied  with  other  things.  There  are  such  things 
as  parish  quarrels.  If  1  am  right,  my  friends,  you 
will  never  have  one  in  your  parish  which  you  might 
not  have  prevented,  and  never  come  out  of  one  with- 
out injury  to  your  character  and  your  Master's  cause. 
It  is  wonderful  to  me  with  what  freedom  a  minister 
is  left  to  do  his  work  in  his  own  way,  if  only  hia 
people  believe  in  his  scrupulous  faithfulness.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  matter  of  preaching  old  sermons. 
It  is  not  good.  A  new  sermon,  fresh  from  the  brain, 
has  always  a  life  in  it  which  an  old  sermon,  though 
better  in  itself,  must  lack.  The  trouble  is  in  the 
prominence  of  that  personal  element  in  preaching  of 
which  I  spoke  in  my  first  lecture.  You  may  take  the 
sermon  off  the  shelf,  and  when  you  have  brushed  the 
dust  off  the  cover  it  is  the  same  sermon  that  you 
preached  on  that  memorable  day  when  you  were  all 
afire  with  your  new  line  of  study  or  with  the  spiritual 
zeal  that  was  burning  about  you.  You  may  reproduce 
the  paper  but  you  cannot  reproduce  the  man,  and  the 
sermon  was  man  and  paper  together.  No,  I  would 
make  as  rare  as  possible  the  preaching  of  the  same 
sermon  to  the  same  people.  But  what  I  wanted  to 
Bay  was  this,  that  the  main  objection  which  the  people 
have  to  the  preaching  of  old  sermons  is  in  the  impres- 
iion  that  it  gives  them  of  unfaithfulness  and  idleness. 
Let  a  minister's  wlic'e  life  make  any  such  suspicion 
im possible  and  thert  "s  no  complaint.     The  minister 


104  LECTURES   ON  PREACIIIXn. 

in  whose  faithfulness  his  people  believe  may  use  his 
own  discretion.  He  must  not  play  any  trieks.  lie 
must  not  put  old  sermons  to  new  texts.  To  put  new 
sermons  to  old  texts  is  better.  But  he  may  use  his 
judgment,  and  those  sermons,  of  which  there  is  a  cer- 
tain class,  whicli  do  not  lose  but  rathm-  gain  by  repe- 
tition, he  may  repreach  again  and  again  till  they 
grow  to  be  to  people  like  their  most  cherished  hymns 
or  passages  from  some  long-loved  book  of  devotion. 

One  of  tlie  most  remarkable  things  about  the 
preacher's  methods  of  work  is  the  way  in  which  they 
form  themselves  in  the  earliest  years  of  his  ministry, 
and  then  rule  him  with  almost  despotic  power  to  the 
end.  I  am  a  slave  to-day,  and  so  I  suppose  is  every 
minister,  to  ways  of  work  that  were  made  within  two 
or  three  years  after  beginning  to  preach.  The  new- 
ness of  the  occupation,  that  unex]ji'cti'dness  of  every- 
thing to  which  I  aUuded  when  I  began  to  spi>ak  to 
you  this  afternoon,  opens  all  the  life,  and  makes  it  re- 
ceptive; and  then  tlu;  earnestness  and  fresh  enthusi- 
asm of  those  days  serves  to  set  the  habits  that  a  man 
makes  them,  to  clothe  them  with  something  that  is 
almost  sacredness,  and  to  make  them  jn-actically  al- 
most unchangeable.  They  an*  the  years  when  a 
preadier  needs  to  be  very  watchful  over  his  discre- 
tion and  his  independence.  When  the  (jlay  is  in  tlie 
bank,  it  matters  not  so  much  who  trcids  on  it.  And 
wlien   the  clay  is  hardened  in   the  vase,  it   may  press 


THE  PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  lOc 

close  upon  another  vase  and  yet  keep  its  own  shape. 
But  when  the  clay  is  just  setting,  and  the  shape  still 
soft,  then  is  the  time  to  guard  it  from  the  blows  or 
pressures    that  would    distort    it    forever.      Be  sure, 
then,  that  the  habits  and  methods  of  your  opening 
ministry  are,  first  of  all,  your  own.     Let  no  respect, 
however  profound    or   merited,  for  any  hero  of    the 
pulpit  make  you   submit  yourself  to  him.     Let  your 
own  nature  freely  shape  its  own  ways.     Only  be  sure 
that  those  ways  do  really  come  out  of  your  own  nat- 
ure, and    not  out  of   the   merely  accidental    circum- 
stances of  your  first  parish.     And  let  them  be  intel- 
ligent, not  merely  such  as  you  happen  into,  but  such 
as  you  can  give  good  reasons  for.     And  let  them  be 
noble,  framed  with  reference  to  the  large  ideal  and 
most  sacred  purposes  of  your  work,  not  with  reference 
to  its  minute  conveniences.     And  let  them  be  broad 
enough  to  give  you  room  to  grow.     It  is  with  ideas 
and  methods  of  work  as  it  is  with  houses.    To  remove 
from  one  to  another  is  wasteful  and  dispiriting ;  but 
to  find  the  one  in  which  we  have  taken  up  our  abode 
unfolding  new  capacity  to  accommodate  our  growing 
mcnral  famdy,  is    satisfactory  and    encouraging.     It 
gives  us  the  sense  at  once  of  settlement  and  progress. 
He  is  the  happiest  and  most  effective  old  man  whoso 
life  has  been  full  of  growth,  but  free  from  revolution  ; 
who  is  living  still  in  the  same  thoughts  and  habits 
which  he  had  when  a  boy,  but  has  found  them  as  the 


106      LECTURES   ON  PREACHIXG. 

Helrews  say  that  tlie  Israelites  found  their  clnthes  i/i 
the  desert  during  the  forty  years,  not  merely  never 
waxing  old  upon  them,  but  growing  with  their  growth 
as  they  passed  on  from  youth  to  manhood. 

I  liojje  that  I  shall  not  have  disappointed  your  ex- 
pectation in  what  I  have  said  about  the  preacher's 
methods  by  dwelling  so  largely  upon  prinei|)l('.s,  and 
going  so  little  into  details.  It  would  V)e  easy  enough 
for  any  minister  to  amuse  himself,  and  perhaps  amuse 
you,  by  recitations  from  his  diary.  But  it  would  not 
be  good.  I  want  to  make  you  know  two  things: 
first,  that  if  your  ministry  is  to  be  good  for  any- 
thing, it  must  be  your  ministry,  and  not  a  feel)le  echo 
of  any  other  man's  ;  and,  second,  that  the  Christian  ' 
ministry  is  not  the  mere  practice  of  a  set  of  rules  and 
precedents,  but  is  a  broad,  free,  fresh  meeting  of  a 
man  with  men,  in  such  close  contact  that  the  Christ 
who  has  entered  into  his  life  may,  through  his,  enter 
into  theirs. 

I  luive  but  a  few  words  to  add  upon  the  spirit  in 
which  the  j)reacher  does  his  best  work.  Aftca*  what 
I  have  been  saying,  my  points  will  need  no  elabora- 
tion. Forgive  mc  if  I  venture  to  put  them  in  the 
Bimj)lest  and  strongest  imperatives  I  can  command. 

First,  count  and  rejoice  to  count  yourself  the  ser- 
vant of  the  people  to  whom  you  minister.  Not  in 
any  worn-out  figure  but  in  very  truth,  call  yourself 
»nd  be  their  servant. 


THE  PREACHER   IN  HIS    WORK.  107 

Second,  never_alIow  youi'self  to  feel  equal  to  youi 
work._  If  you  ever  find  that  spirit  growing  on  you, 
be  vifraid,  and  instantly  attack  your  hardest  piece  of 
work,  try  to  convert  your  toughest  infidel,  try  to 
preach  on  your  most  exacting  theme,  to  show  your- 
self how  unequal  to  it  all  you  are. 

Third,  be_profoandly  honest.  Never  dare  to  say 
in  the  pulpit  or  in  private,  through  ardent  excite- 
ment or  conformity  to  what  you  know  you  are  e:f- 
pected  to  say,  one  word  which  at  the  moment  when 
you  say  it,  you  do  not  believe.  It  would  cut  down 
the  range  of  what  you  say,  perhaps,  but  it  would  en- 
dow every  word  that  was  left  with  the  force  of  ten. 

And  last  of  all,  be  vital,  be  alive,  not  dead.  Do 
everything  that  can  keep  your  vitality  at  its  fullest. 
Even  the  physical  vitality  do  not  dare  to  disregard. 
One  of  the  most  striking  preachers  of  our  country 
seems  to  me  to  have  a  large  part  of  his  power  simply 
in  his  physique,  in  the  impression  of  vitality,  in  the 
magnetisni  almost  like  a  material  thing,  that  passes 
between  him  and  the  people  who  sit  before  him. 
Pi'ay  for  and  work  for  fulness  of  life  above  every- 
thing ;  full  red  blood  in  the  body  ;  full  honestj'^  and 
truth  in  the  mind ;  and  the  fulness  of  a  grateful  love 
for  the  Saviour  in  your  heart.  Then,  however  men 
set  their  mark  of  failure  or  success  upon  your  niinis- 
hrj',  you  cannot  fail,  you  must  succeed. 


THE   IDEA   OF  THE   SERMON. 


I 


HAVE  dwelt  long  upon  the  preacher  and  his  char- 
acter because  he  is  essential  to  the  sermon.  He 
cannot  throw  a  sermon  forth  into  tlie  world  as  an  au- 
thor can  his  book,  as  an  artist  can  his  statue,  and  let 
it  live  thenceforth  a  life  wholly  independent  of  him- 
self. That  is  the  reason  why  sermons  are  not  ordi- 
narily interesting  reading.  At  least  that  is  one  of  the 
reasons.  Now  and  then  you  do  find  a  volume  of  ser- 
mons which,  as  it  were,  keep  their  author  in  them, 
60  that  as  you  read  them  you  feel  him  present  in  the 
room.  But,  ordinarily,  reading  sermons  is  like  list- 
ening to  an  c!cho.  The  words  are  there,  but  the  per- 
sonal intonation  is  gone  out  of  them  and  there  is  an 
unreality  about  it  all.  Now  and  thou  you  find  sei-- 
mons  which  do  not  suggest  their  ever  having  been 
preached  and  they  give  you  none  of  this  feeling.  But 
they  were  not  good  sermons,  scarcely  even  real  ser- 
mons, when  they  were  preached.  In  general  it  ia 
true  that  the  sermon  which  is  good  to  ]n-each  is  poor 
to  read  and  tl;e  sermon  which  is  good  to  read  is  poor 


THE   IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.  109 

CO  preach.  There  are  exceptions,  but  this  is  gener- 
ally true. 

Whatever  is  in  the  sermon  must  be  in  the  preacher 
first ;  clearness,  logicalness,  vivacity,  earnestness, 
sweetness,  and  light  must  be  personal  qualities  in 
him  before  they  are  qualities  of  tliought  and  languagQ 
in  what  he  utters  to  his  people.  If  you  have  your 
artist  you  have  only  to  supply  your  marble  and  chisel 
with  the  mere  technicid  skill,  and  you  have  your 
statue.  If  you  have  your  preacher  very  little  more 
is  needed  to  set  free  the  sermon  which  is  in  him.  In 
this  lecture  and  the  next  I  want  to  speak  about  the 
sermon.  I  make  a  division  which  will  not  be  very 
precise,  but  may  be  of  some  service  ;  and  shall  speak 
to-day  more  of  the  sermon  in  its  general  purpose  and 
idea,  and  next  Thursday  more  of  the  make  and 
method  of  the  sermon. 

It  seems  to  me,  then,  that  at  the  very  outset  the 
definite  and  immediate  purpose  which  a  sermon  has 
set  before  it  makes  it  impossible  to  consider  it  as  a 
work  of  art,  and  everj^  attempt  to  consider  it  so  works 
injury  to  the  purpose  for  which  the  sermon  was 
created.  Many  of  the  ineffective  sermons  that  ace 
made  owe  their  failure  to  a  blind  and  fruitless  effort 
to  produce  something  which  shall  be  a  work  of  art, 
prnforraing  to  souie  type  or  pattern  which  is  not 
clearly  understood  but  is  supposed  to  be  essential  and 
eternal.     But  the  unreasonableness  of  this  appears 


110  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  moment  that  we  think  of  it.  A  sermon  exists 
in  and  for  its  purpose.  That  purpose  is  the  persuad- 
ing and  moving  of  men's  souls.  That  purpose  must 
never  be  lost  sight  of.  If  it  ever  is,  the  sermon  flags. 
It  is  not  always  on  the  surface  ;  not  always  impetu- 
ous and  eager  in  the  discourses  of  the  settled  paster 
as  it  is  in  the  appeals  of  the  Evangelist  who  speaks 
this  once  and  this  once  only  to  the  men  he  sees  be- 
fore him  The  sermon  of  the  habitual  preacher 
grows  more  sober,  but  it  never  can  lose  out  of  it  this 
consciousness  of  a  purpose  ;  it  never  can  justify  itself 
in  any  self-indulgence  that  will  hinder  or  delay  that 
l)urpose.  It  is  always  aimed  at  men.  It  is  always 
looking  in  their  faces  to  see  how  they  are  moved.  It 
knows  no  essential  and  eternal  type,  but  its  law 
for  what  it  ought  to  be  comes  from  the  needs  and 
fickle  changes  of  the  men  for  whom  it  lives.  Now 
this  is  thoroughly  inartistic.  Art  contemplates  and 
serves  the  absolute  beauty.  The  simple  work  of  art 
is  the  pure  utterance  of  beautiful  thought  in  beau- 
tiful form  without  further  purpose  than  simply  that 
it  should  be  uttered.  The  poem  or  the  statue  may 
instruct,  inspire,  and  rebuke  men,  but  that  design,  if 
it  were  present  in  the  making  of  the  poem  or  the 
statue,  vitiated  the  purity  of  its  artistic  quality.  Art 
knows  nothing  of  the  tumultuous  eagerness  of  ear- 
nest purpose.  She  is  supremely  calm  and  independ- 
ent  of   the  whims  of   men.     Phidias  cast  among  a 


THE   IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.  Ill 

barbarous  race  must  carve  not  some  hideous  idol 
which  shall  stir  their  coarse  blood  by  its  frantic  ex- 
travagance, but  the  same  serene  and  lofty  beauty  of 
Athene  which  he  would  carve  at  Athens.  If  it  wholly 
fails  to  reach  their  gross  and  blunted  senses,  that  ia 
no  disgrace  to  it  as  a  work  of  art,  for  the  artistic  and 
the  didactic  are  separate  from  one  another. 

And  yet  we  find  a  constant  tendency  in  the  his- 
tory of  preaching  to  treat  the  sermon  as  a  work  of 
art.  It  is  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  something  which 
had  a  value  in  itself.  We  hear  of  beautiful  sermons, 
as  if  they  existed  solely  on  the  ground  that  "beauty 
is  its  own  excuse  for  being."  The  age  of  the  great 
French  preachers,  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  with  its  ser- 
mons preached  in  the  salons  of  critical  and  sceptical 
noblemen,  and  of  ladies  who  offered  to  their  friends 
the  entertainment  of  ^le  last  discovered  preacher, 
was  full  of  this  false  idea  of  the  sermon  as  a  work  of 
art.  And  the  soberer  Englishman,  whether  he  be  the 
Puritan  praising  the  painful  exposition  to  which  he 
has  just  listened,  or  the  Churchman  delighting  in  the 
polished  periods  of  Tillotson  or  South,  has  his  own 
way  of  falling  into  the  same  heresy.  I  think  it  does 
lis  good  to  go  back  to  the  simple  sermons  of  the  New 
Testament.  I  do  not  speak  of  the  perfect  discourses 
of  our  Lord,  though  m  them  we  should  find  the 
strongest  confirmation  of  what  I  am  now  saying  : 
but  take  the  sermons  of  St.  Peter,  of  St.  Stephen, 


112  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

of  St.  Paul,  and  from  tbem  come  down  to  the  ser- 
mons which  have  been  great  as  sermons  ever  since. 
Through  all  their  variety  you  find  this  one  thing 
constantly  true  about  them  :  they  were  all  valuable 
solely  for  the  work  they  could  accomplish.  They 
were  tools,  and  not  works  of  art.  To  turn  a  tool  into 
a  work  of  art,  to  elaborate  the  shape  and  chase  the 
surface  of  the  axe  with  which  you  are  to  hew  your 
wood,  is  bad  taste ;  and  to  give  any  impression  in  a 
sermon  that  it  has  forgotten  its  purpose  and  been 
shaped  for  anything  else  than  what  in  the  largest 
extent  of  those  great  words  might  be  described  as 
saving  souls,  makes  it  offensive  to  a  truly  good  taste 
and  dull  to  the  average  man,  who  feels  an  incon- 
gruity which  he  cannot  define.  The  power  of  the 
sermons  of  the  Paulist  fathers  in  the  Romish  Chui'ch 
and  of  Mr.  Moody  in  Protestantism  lies  simply  here: 
in  the  clear  and  undisturbed  presence  of  their  pur- 
pose ;  and  maiiy  ministers  who  never  dream  of  such 
a  thing,  who  think  that  they  are  preaching  purely 
for  the  good  of  souls,  are  losing  the  jDOwer''  out  of 
their  sermons  because  they  ai'e  trjnng,  even  without 
knowing  it,  to  make  them  not  only  sermons,  but 
works  of  art.  There  was  an  old  word  which  I  think 
fias  ceased  to  be  used.  Men  used  to  talk  of  "  ser- 
monizing." They  said  that  some  good  preacher  waa 
"a  fine  sermc-nizer."  The  word  contained  just  this 
vice  •.  it  made  the  sermon  an  achievement,  to  b(}  at- 


THE  IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.  113 

tempted  and  enjoyed  for  itself  apart  from  an }■  thing 
that  it  could  do,  like  a  picture  or  an  oratorio,  like 
the  Venus  of  Milo  or  the  Midsumraer-Nig-ht's  Dream. 
And  here  lies  the  truth  concerning  the  way  in  which 
really  high  truth  and  careful  thought  may  be  brought 
to  a  congregation.  We  hear  a  good  deal  about  preach- 
ing over  people's  heads.  There  is  such  a  thing.  But 
generally  it  is  not  the  character  of  the  ammunition,  but 
the  fault  of  aim,  that  makes  the  missing  shot.  There 
is  nothing  worse  for  a  preacher  than  to  come  to  think 
that  he  must  preach  down  to  j^eople ;  that  they  can- 
not take  the  very  best  he  has  to  give.  He  grows  to 
despise  his  own  sermons,  and  the  people  quickly  learn 
to  sympathize  with  their  minister.  The  people  will  • 
get  the  heart  out  of  the  most  thorough  and  thought- 
ful sermon,  if  only  it  really  is  a  sermon.     Even  sub- 

J^ety  of  thought,  the  tracing  of  intricate  relations  of 
ideas,  it  is  remarkable  how  men  of  no  subtle  thought 

"will  follow  it,  if  it  is  really  preached.  But  subtlety 
which  has  delighted  in  itself,  which  has  spun  itself 
fine  for  its  own  pleasure  in  seeing  how  fine  it  could 
be  spun,  vexes  and  throws  them  off ;  and  they  are 
right.  Never  be  afraid  to  call  upon  your  people  to 
follow  your  best  thought,  if  only  it  is  really  trying  to 
lead  them  somewhere.  The  confidence  of  the  minis- 
ter in  the  people  is  at  the  bottom  of  every  confidence 
of  the  people  in  the  minister. 

What  I  have  been  saying  bears  also  on  what  we 


114  LECTURES   OxV   PREACHING. 

hear,  every  now  and  then,  from  the  days  of  the 
"  Spectator "  down,  the  expression  of  a  wish  tlmt 
moderate  ministers,  instead  of  giving  people  their 
own  moderate  thought,  wouki  recur  to  the  good  work 
which  has  been  ah-eady  done,  and  read  some  sermon 
of  one  of  the  great  masters.  There  too,  there  is  the 
"sermonizing"  idea.  The  real  sermon  idea  is  lost. 
Such  a  practice  coming  into  vogue  would  speedily 
destroy  the  pulpit's  power.  Not  merely  would  it  be 
a  confession  of  incapacity,  but  the  idea  of  speech,  of 
present  address  for  a  present  purpose,  would  disap- 
jiear.  I  do  not  think  we  could  anticipate  any  con- 
tinual interest,  scarcely  any  perpetual  existence  for 
the  preaching  work  in  case  such  an  idea  became  prev 
alent  ;uid  accepted. 

The  first  good  consequence  of  the  emphatic  state- 
ment that  a  sermon  is  to  be  considered  solely  with 
reference  to  its  proper  purposes  will  be  in  a  new  and 
larger  freedom  for  the  preacher.  We  make  the  idea 
of  a  sermon  too  specific,  wishing  to  conform  it  to 
some  preestablished  type  of  what  a  sermon  ought  to 
be.  There  is  nothing  which  a  sermon  oujrht  to  be 
except  a  fit  medium  of  truth  to  men.  There  is  no 
model  of  a  sermon  so  strange  and  nOvel,  so  different 
from  every  pattern  upon  which  sermons  have  been 
Bha[)cd  before,  that  if  it  became  evident  to  you  that 
that  was  the  form  through  which  the  message  which 
you  had   to  tell  would  best  reach  the  men  to  when/ 


THE  IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.  115 

you  had  to  tell  it,  it  would  not  be  your  right,  nay, 
be  your  duty  to  preach  your  truth  in  that  new  form. 
I  grant  that  the  accepted  forms  of  preaching  were 
shaped  originally  by  a  lesire  for  utility,  and  only 
gradually  assumed  a  secondary  value  and  importanca 
for  their  own  sakes.  That  is  the  way  in  which  every 
such  superstitious  value  of  anything  originates.  I 
grant,  therefore,  that  the  young  preacher  may  well 
feel  that  a  certain  presumption  of  advantage  belongs 
to  those  types  of  sermons  which  he  finds  in  use.  He 
will  not  wantonly  depart  from  them.  I  am  sure  that 
all  hearers  of  sermons  will  say  :  ''  Better  the  most 
abject  conformity  to  rule  than  departure  from  rule  for 
the  mere  sake  of  departiu-e.  Better  the  stiff  move- 
ments of  imitation  than  the  fantastic  gestures  of  de- 
liberate originality."  But  what  I  plead  for  is,  that 
in  all  your  desire  to  create  good  sermons  you  should 
think  no  sermon  good  that  does  not  do  its  work.  Let 
the  end  for  which  you  preach  play  freely  in  and  mod- 
ify the  form  of  your  preaching.  He  who  is  original 
for  the  sake  of  originality  is  as  much  governed  by 
the  type  from  which  he  departs  as  is  another  man 
who  slavishly  conforms  to  it ;  but  he  who  freely 
uses  the  types  which  he  finds,  and  yet  compels  thcru 
always  to  bend  to  the  purposes  for  which  lie  uses 
them,  he  is  their  true  master,  and  not  their  slave. 
Such  originality  as  that  alone  at  once  secures  the 
best  effectiveness  of  the  preacher,  and  advances  at 


116  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  same  time  the  general  type  and  idea  of  tlie  ser- 
mon, preserving  it  from  monotony  and  making  it  bet- 
ter and  better  from  age  to  age. 

Now  let  me  turn  to  some  of  those  questions  affect- 
ing the  general  idea  of  what  a  sermon  ought  to  be, 
which  are  continually  recurring,  and  say  a  few  worda 
on  each. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  those  questions, 
which  appears  in  many  forms,  arises  from  the  neces- 
sity of  which  I  have  already  so  much  spoken,  of  min 
gling  the  elements  of  personal  influence  and  abstract 
truth  to  make  the  perfect  sermon.  There  are  some 
sermons  in  which  the  preacher  does  not  appear  at  all ; 
there  are  other  sermons  in  which  he  is  offensively  and 
crudely  prominent  ;  there  are  still  other  sermons 
where  he  is  hidden  and  yet  felt,  the  force  of  his  per- 
sonal conviction  and  earnest  love  being  poured  through 
tlie  arguments  which  he  uses,  and  the  promises  which 
he  holds  out.  (3f  the  second  class  of  sermons  in 
which  the  minister's  personality  is  offensively  promi- 
nent, the  most  striking  instance  is  what  seems  to 
me  to  have  become  rather  common  of  late,  and  what 
I  may  call  the  autobiographical  style  of  preacli- 
ing.  There  are  some  preachers  to  whom  one  might 
listen  for  a  year,  and  then  he  could  write  their  bi- 
ography, if  it  were  worth  the  doing.  Every  truth 
they  wish  to  teach  is  illustrated  by  some  event  in 
their  own  history.     Every  change  of  character  which 


THE  IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.  117 

i/hey  wish  to  urge  is  set  forth  under  the  form  in 
which  that  change  took  place  in  them.  The  story 
of  how  they  were  converted  becomes  as  familiar  to 
their  congregation  as  the  story  of  the  conversion  of 
St.  Paul.  It  is  the  crudest  attempt  to  blend  per- 
sonality and  truth.  They  are  not  fused  with  one 
another,  but  only  tied  together.  It  has  a  certain 
power.  It  is  wonderful  how  interesting  almost  any 
man  becomes  if  he  talks  frankly  about  himself.  You 
cannot  help  listening  to  the  garrulous  unfolding  of 
his  histor}^  And  in  the  pulpit  no  doubt  it  gives  a 
certain  vividness,  when  a  popular  preacher  whose  peg- 
pie  are  already  interested  in,  and  curious  about  his 
personality,  after  enforcing  some  argument,  suddenly 
turns,  and  instead  of  saying,  after  the  pulpit  manner, 
"  But  the  objector  will  reply,"  briskly  breaks  out 
with,  "  Last  Monday  afternoon  a  man  came  into  my 
etudy,"  or  "  A  man  met  me  in  the  street,  and  said, 
Mr.  this  or  that"  (using  his  own  name),  "what  do 
3'ou  make  of  this  objection  ?  "  It  gives  a  clear  con- 
creteness  to  the  whole,  and  feeds  that  curiosity  about 
each  other's  ways  of  living  out  of  which  all  our 
gossip  grows. 

The  evils  of  the  habit  are  evident  enough.  Not  to 
speak  of  its  oppressiveness  to  the  best  taste,  nor  of 
the  way  in  which  its  power  dies  out,  as  the  much- 
paraded  person  of  the  niinistev  grows  familiar  and 
unimposing,   it  certainly   must  have   a    tendency   tc 


118  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

narrow  the  suggested  range  of  Christian  truth  and 
experience.  In  parishes  where  such  strong  promi- 
nence belongs  to  the  preacher's  personahty,  where  the 
people  are  always  hearing  of  how  he  learned  thia 
truth  or  passed  through  that  emotion,  all  apprehen- 
sion of  thought  and  realization  of  experience  narrows 
itself.  It  is  expected  in  just  that  way  which  has 
been  so  often  and  so  vividly  pictured.  It  is  distrusted 
if  it  comes  in  other  forms.  The  rich  variety  and 
lai-geness  of  the  Christian  life  is  lost.  There  are 
some  parishes  which,  in  the  course  of  a  long  pastor- 
ate, have  become  but  the  colossal  repetition  of  their 
minister's  personality.  They  are  the  form  of  his  ex- 
perience seen  through  a  mist,  grown  large  in  size  but 
vague  and  dim  in  outline.  Every  parishioner  is  a 
weakened  repetition  of  the  minister's  ideas  and  ways. 
I  think  that  what  a  minister  learns  to  rejoice  in  more 
and  more  is  the  endless  difference  of  that  Christian 
life,  which  is  yet  always  the  same.  It  shows  him  the 
possibility  of  a  Christianity  as  universal  as  humanity, 
a  Christianity  in  which  the  diversity  and  unity  of 
humanity  might  both  be  kept.  And  any  undue  promi- 
nence of  himself  in  liis  teaching,  loses  tlie  largeness 
)n  which  the  hope  of  this  variety  in  unity  depends. 

There  is  something  better  than  this.  There  is  a 
fine  and  subtle  infusion  of  a  man  into  his  work,  which 
achieves  what  this  crude  fastening  of  the  two  together 
attempts,  but  fails  to  accomplish.    Take,  for  instance, 


THE   IDEA    OF  THE   SERMON.  119 

the  sermons  of  Robertson.  You  will  know,  from  al- 
lusions to  them  wliicli  I  have  already  made,  that  I 
sympathize  very  fully  with  that  high  estimate  which 
6uch  multitudes  of  jDeople  have  set  upon  those  re- 
markable discourses.  I  think  that  in  all  the  best 
qualities  of  preaching  they  stand  supreme  among  the 
sermons  of  our  time.  And  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able things  about  them  is  the  way  in  which  the  per- 
sonal force  of  the  preacher,  and  the  essential  power 
of  the  truth,  are  blended  into  one  strong  impressive- 
nesss.  The  personality  never  muddies  the  thought. 
I  do  not  remember  one  allusion  to  his  own  history, 
one  anecdote  of  his  own  life  ;  but  they  arc  his  ser- 
mons. The  thought  is  stronger  for  us  because  he  has 
thought  it.  The  feelins:  is  more  vivid  because  he  has 
felt  it.  And  always  he  leads  us  to  God  by  a  way 
along  which  he  has  gone  himself.  It  is  interesting  to 
read  along  with  the  sermons  the  story  of  his  life,  to 
see  what  he  was  passing  through  at  the  date  when 
this  sermon  or  that  was  preached,  and  to  watch,  as 
you  often  may,  without  any  suspicion  of  mere  fanci- 
fulness,  how  the  experience  shed  its  power  into  the 
sermon,  but  left  its  form  of  facts  outside ;  how  his 
Bermons  were  like  the  heaven  of  his  life,  in  which  the 
spirit  of  his  life  lived  after  it  had  cast  away  its  body. 
There  have,  indeed,  been  preachers  and  writers 
whose  utterance  of  truth  has  fallen  naturally  in  the 
forms  of  autobiography,  and  yet  who  have  been  at 


i'20  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

once  strong  and  broad.  You  can  gather  all  of  Lati- 
mer's history  out  of  his  sermons,  and  jNIilton  haa 
given  us  a  large  part  of  his  teaching  in  connection 
with  the  events  of  his  own  life.  But  ordinarily  that 
ii  true  in  literature,  and  certainly  in  preaching,  which 
is  true  in  life.  It  is  not  the  man  who  forces  the 
events  of  his  life  on  you  who  most  puts  the  spirit  of 
his  life  into  you.  The  most  unreserved  men  are  not 
the  most  influential.  A  reserved  man  who  cares  for 
truth,  and  cares  that  his  brethren  should  know  the 
truth,  who  therefore  is  always  holding  back  the  mere 
envelope  of  accident  and  circumstance  in  which  the 
truth  has  embodied  itself  to  him,  and  yet  sending 
forth  the  truth  with  all  the  clearness  and  force  which 
it  has  gathered  for  him  from  that  embodiment,  he  is 
the  best  preacher,-  as  everywhere  he  is  the  most  influ- 
ential man.  Try  to  live  such  a  life,  so  full  of  events 
and  relationships,  that  the  two  great  things,  the 
power  of  Christ  and  the  value  of  your  brethren's 
souls,  shall  be  tangible  and  certain  to  j'ou,  not  sub- 
jects of  speculation  and  belief,  but  realities  whieh  you 
have  seen  and  known  ;  then  siidc  the  shell  of  per- 
sonal experience,  lest  it  should  hamper  the  truth  that 
you  must  utter,  and  let  the  truth  go  out  as  the  shot 
goes,  carrying  the  force  of  the  gun  with  it,  but  leav- 
ing the  gun  behind. 

There  is  something  beautiful  to  me  in  the  WAy  in 
viMich.  the  utterance  of  the  best  part  of  a  man's  jwn 


THE   IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.  121 

life,  its  essence,  its  result,  which  the  pulpit  makea 
possible,  and  even  tempts,  is  welcomed  by  many  men, 
who  seem  to  find  all  other  utterance  of  themselves 
impossible.  I  have  known  shy,  reserved  men,  Avho, 
standing  in  their  pulpits,  have  drawn  back  before  a 
thousand  eyes  veils  that  were  sacredly  closed  when 
only  one  friend's  eyes  could  see.  You  might  talk 
with  them  a  hundred  times,  and  you  would  not  learn 
so  much  of  what  they  were  as  if  you  once  lieard  them 
preach.  It  was  partly  the  impersonality  of  the  great 
congregation.  Humanity,  without  the  offense  of  in- 
dividuality, stood  there  before  them.  It  was  no  vio- 
lation of  their  loyalty  to  themselves  to  tell  their  se- 
cret to  mankind.  It  was  a  man  who  silenced  them. 
But  also,  besides  this,  it  was,  I  think,  that  the  sight 
of  many  waiting  faces  set  free  in  them  a  new,  clear 
knowledge  of  what  their  truth  or  secret  was,  un- 
snarled it  from  the  petty  circumstances  into  which  it 
had  been  entangled,  called  it  first  into  clear  conscious- 
ness, and  then  tempted  it  into  utterance  with  an  au- 
thority which  they  did  not  recognize  in  an  individual 
curiosity  demanding  the  details  of  their  life.  Our 
race,  represented  in  a  great  assemblage,  has  more  au- 
thority and  more  beguilement  for  many  of  us  than 
the  single  man,  however  near  he  be.  And  he, who  is 
eilent  before  the  interviewer,  pours  out  the  very 
depths  of  his  soul  to  the  great  multitude.  He  will 
tot  print  his  diary  for  the  world  to  read,  but  he  will 


V22  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

tell  his  fellow-men  what  Christ  may  be  to  them,  sc 
that  they  shall  see,  as  God  sees,  what  Christ  has  been 
to  him. 

I  think  again  that  this  first  truth  of  preaching,  the 
truth  that  the  minister  enters  into  the  sermon,  touehea 
upon  the  point  of  which  I  spoke  in  my  last  sermon, 
the  authority  of  the  sermon.  The  sermon  is  God'a 
message  sent  by  you  to  certain  of  your  fellow-men. 
If  the  message  came  to  your  fellow-men  just  as  it 
came  from  God  it  must  be  absolutely  true  and  must 
have  absolute  authority.  If  the  fallible  messenger 
mixes  himself  with  his  infallible  message,  tbe  absolute 
authority  of  the  message  is  in  some  degree  qualified. 
But  we  have  seen  that  the  very  idea  of  the  sermon 
implies  that  the  messenger  must  mingle  himself  with 
the  message  that  he  brings  ;  and,  as  a  mere  matter  of 
fact,  we  Imoio  that  every  preacher  does  declare  the 
truth  from  his  own  point  of  view  and  follows  his  own 
judgment,  enlightened  by  his  study  and  his  prayer, 
when  he  declares  how  the  eternal  truth  applies  to 
ttMuporary  circumstances.  Some  things  which  you 
say  from  the  pulpit  you  know;  other  things  are  your 
speculations.  This  is  true  very  largely  of  the  antici- 
pations and  prophecies  about  the  destiny  of  the  Gos- 
pel, about  the  relations  which  the  Gospel  holds  to  the 
circumstances  of  special  times  in  which  ministers  in- 
vlulge.  John  Wesley  used  to  say  that  "  Infidels  know, 
whether  Christians  know  it  or  not,  that  the  giving  up 


THE    IDEA    OE   THE   SERMON.  128 

witchcraft  is  in  effect  giving  up  the  Bible."  When 
we  were  children  it  used  to  be  preached  to  us  that  the 
Bible  must  stand  or  fall  witli  human  slaver3^  And 
now  we  hear  continually  that  this  or  that  will  happen 
to  religion  if  such  or  such  a  theory  of  natural  science 
should  be  accepted.  Such  prophecies  are  always  bad. 
Tests  which  are  not  essential  and  absolute  tests  do 
great  harm.  But  these  are  instances  of  the  way  in 
which  speculations,  personal  opinions,  prejudices,  if 
you  will,  must  attach  themselves  to  any  live  man's 
utterance  of  the  truth.  It  is  inevitable  ;  and  what 
must  be  the  result  ?  Either  all  speculation  must  be 
cut  away  and  the  sermon  be  reduced  to  the  mere  rep- 
etition of  indisputable  and  undisputed  truth  :  and  the 
mere  primary  facts  of  Christianity  which  alone  are 
held  absolutely  "semper,  ubique  et  ab  omnibus"  must 
make  the  sum  of  preaching  ;  or  else  the  preacher  must 
let  the  people  clearlj^  understand  that  between  the 
facts  that  are  his  message  and  the  philosophy  of  those 
facts  which  is  his  best  and  truest  judgment  there  is  a 
clear  distinction.  The  first  come  with  the  authority 
of  God's  revelation.  The  others  come  with  what 
persuasion  their  essential  reasonableness  gives  them. 
Now  the  first  method  is  impracticable.  No  man  ever 
did  it.  No  man  who  claims  to  preach  nothing  but  the 
simple  Gospel  preaches  it  so  simply  that  it  has  not  in 
•t  something  of  his  own  speculation  about  it.  The 
ftther  method  is  the  only  method.     Even   St.   Paul 


124  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

camo  to  it  in  his  epistles.  But  how  few  preachers 
frankly  adopt  it.  We  cover  all  we  sa}'  —  our  cnido 
guesses,  our  ignorant  anticipations  —  with  a  certain 
vague  antl  undefined  authority ;  and  men,  hearing 
themselves  called  on  to  believe  them  all,  and  seeing 
part  of  them  to  be  untrue,  really  believe  none  of 
them  in  any  genuine  or  hearty  way.  We  stretch  our 
authority  to  try  to  make  it  cover  so  much  that  it 
grows  thin  and  will  not  decently  cover  anything  at 
nil.  Frankness  is  what  we  need,  frankness  to  say 
"  This  is  God's  truth,  and  this  other  is  what  I  think." 
If  we  Avere  frank  like  that,  see  what  good  things 
would  come.  The  minister  would  have  room  for  in- 
tellectual change  and  growth,  and  not  have  to  steal 
them  as  if  they  were  something  to  which  he  had  no 
right.  The  people  could  hear  many  men  preach  and 
hear  them  differ  from  each  other  and  yet  not  be  be- 
wildered and  confounded.  And  every  preacher,  with 
the  clearly  recognized  right,  would  have  to  accept 
the  duty  of  being  a  thinker  in  the  things  of  God. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  questions  which  meets 
us  as  we  try  to  form  an  idea  of  what  the  sermon 
ought  to  be,  is  that  suggested  by  the  occasional  or 
constant  outcry  against  the  preaching  of  Doctrine, 
and  the  call  for  practical  sermons,  or  for  what  is 
called  "  preaching  Christ  only."  Let  me  speak  of 
this.  I  do  not  hold  that  the  outcry  is  absurd.  I  do 
not  think  that  it  is  one  to  which   the  preacher  ought 


THE  IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.  12o 

to  slmc  liis  ears.  It  is  a  very  blind  and  unintelligent 
cry,  no  doubt.  All  popular  outcries  are  that.  Every 
popular  movement  and  demand  has  in  genel'al  the 
same  history.  It  begins  with  a  vague  discontent 
that  never  even  attempts  to  give  an  account  of  what 
it  means,  and  it  passes  on  into  three  different  man- 
ifestations of  itself  ;  one,  an  honest  attempt  by  its 
own  adherents  to  declare  its  philosophy  and  give  an 
intelligible  reason  for  it ;  another,  an  effort  by  those 
who  dislike  it  to  misrepresent  and  to  defame  it ;  a 
third  the  adoption  of  its  phrases  by  people  who  care 
little  about  it  but  like  to  affect  an  interest  in  what- 
ever is  uppermost.  In  this  last  stage  the  popular 
movement  becomes  a  fashionable  cant.  Thej-e  never 
was  a  stir  and  dissatisfaction,  a  dislodging  and  out- 
reachins  of  men's  minds  which  did  not  show  itself 
in  all  these  forms.  This  dissatisfaction  with  vhat  is 
called  doctrinal  preaching  appears  in  all  throe.  At 
the  bottom  it  is  a  discontent  with  something  that  the 
souls  of  men  feel  to  be  wrong.  Then  comes  the  en- 
deavor of  men  to  state  the  grievance,  which  's  often 
very  foolishly  done,  and  would,  if  carried  out.  sweep 
away  everything  like  positive  Christianity  together. 
Then  comes  the  misrepresentation  of  the  popular  de- 
mand, which  talks  about  it  as  if  it  all  came  of  the 
spirit  of  indifference  or  unbelief.  And  then  finally 
succeeds  that  which  is  the  lowest  degradation  tc 
which  anything  which  might  be  an  intelligent  opii^ior 


126  LECTURES   ON  PRE A(  RING. 

can  be  reduced,  the  affectation  which  pn^tends  to  be  in 
horror  at  anything  like  dogin;itisin,  and  repeats  with- 
out meaning  the  praises  of  an  undogmatic  preaching. 
Now  the  minister  meets  all  of  these.  What  shall  he 
do  ?  It  is  easy  enough  for  him  to  expose  the  illogical 
reasoning,  easy  for  him  to  see  its  misconceptions, 
easy  for  him  to  despise  its  cant,  but  it  ought  not  to 
be  easy  for  him  to  shut  his  ears  to  that  out  of  which 
they  all  come,  that  deep,  blind,  unintelligent  discon- 
tent with  something  which  is  evidently  wrong.  He 
must  bring  his  intelligence  to  bear  on  that.  It  can- 
not tell  what  it  means  itself.  He  must  find  out  what 
it  means,  and  not  be  deterred  by  the  offensiveness 
of  any  of  its  exhibitions  from  a  careful  understandiug 
of  its  true  significance. 

For  it  does  mean  something,  and  what  it  means 
is  this :  that  men  who  are  locking  for  a  law  of  life 
and  an  inspiration  of  life  are  met  by  a  theory  of 
life.  Much  of  our  preaching  is  like  delivering  lect- 
ures upon  medicine  to  sick  people.  The  lecture  is 
true.  The  lecture  is  interesting.  Nay,  the  truth  of 
the  lecture  is  important,  and  if  the  sick  man  could 
learn  the  truth  of  the  lecture  he  would  be  a  bet  <er 
patient,  he  would  take  his  medicine  more  responsibly 
and  regulate  his  diet  more  intelligently.  But  still 
the  fact  remains  that  the  lecture  is  not  medicine,  and 
that  to  give  the  medicine,  not  to  deliver  the  lecture, 
is  the  preacher's  duty.     I  know  the  delusiveness  oi 


THE  IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON:  127 

Bucb  an  analogy.  Let  us  not  urge  it  too  far  ;  but  let 
us  own  that  the  idea  which  has  haunted  the  religious 
life  of  man,  and  which  is  not  true,  has  had  a  serious 
and  bad  effect  on  preaching.  That  idea  is  that  the 
tenure  of  certain  truths,  and  not  the  possession  of  a 
certain  character,  is  a  saving  thing.  It  is  the  notion 
that  faith  consists  in  the  believing  of  propositions. 
Let  that  heresy  be  active  or  latent  in  a  preacher's 
mind,  and  he  inevitably  falls  into  the  vice  which 
people  complain  of  v/hen  they  talk  about  doctrinal 
preaching.  He  declares  truth  for  its  own  value  and 
not  with  direct  reference  to  its  result  in  life. 

It  is  not  my  place  to  argue  here  that  the  idea  of 
faith  from  which  such  preaching  comes  is  not  the 
scriptural  idea,  not  the  idea  of  Jesus.  13 ut  it  does 
come  within  my  region  to  point  out  the  influence  that 
a  man's  first  idea  of  saving  faith  must  have  upon  his 
whole  conception  of  a  sermon.  The  preacher  who 
thinks  that  faith  is  the  holding  of  truth,  must  ever 
be  aiming  to  save  men  from  believing  error  and  to 
bring  them  to  the  knowledge  of  what  is  true.  The 
man  who  thinks  that  faith  is  personal  loyalty,  must 
always  be  trying  to  bring  men  to  Christ  and  Christ 
to  men.  Which  is  the  true  idea  ?  That,  as  I  said, 
't  is  not  for  me  to  discuss.  But  I  may  beg -you  to 
consider  seriously  what  the  faith  was  that  Christ 
longed  so  to  see  in  his  disciples,  and  what  that  faith 
laust  be  whose  "  trial "  or  education  St.  Pet(!r  saj^a 


128  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

"  is  much  more  precious  than  of  gold  that  perishes." 
Such  words  as  those  carry  us  inevitably  into  the 
reahn  of  cliaracter,  which  we  know  is  the  one  thing 
in  man  wliich  God  vahies  and  for  wliicli  Christ 
labored  and  lived  and  died. 

This  does  seem  to  me  to  make  the  truth  about  the 
preaching  of  doctrine  very  plain.  The  salvation  of 
men's  souls  from  sin,  the  renewing  and  perfecting  of 
their  characters,  is  the  great  end  of  all.  But  that  is 
d.Mie  by  Chrisi.  To  bring  tliem  then  to  Christ  that 
lie  may  do  it,  to  make  Christ  jilain  to  them  that 
they  may  find  Him,  this  is  the  preacher's  work.  But 
I  cannot  do  my  duty  in  making  Christ  plain  unless  1 
tell  them  of  Him  all  the  richness  that  I  know.  I 
must  keep  nothing  back.  All  that  has  come  to  me 
about  Him  from  His  word,  all  that  has  grown  clear 
to  me  about  His  nature  or  His  methods  by  my  in- 
ward or  outward  experience,  all  that  He  has  told  me 
of  Himself,  becomes  part  of  the  message  that  T  must 
tell  to  those  men  whom  He  has  sent  me  to  call  home 
to  Himself.  I  will  do  this  in  its  fulness.  And  this 
is  the  preaching  of  doctrine,  positive,  distinct,  charac- 
teristic Christian  Tiiith.  Only,  the  truth  has  always 
character  beyond  it  as  its  ulterior  purpose.  Not 
until  I  forget  that,  and  begin  to  tell  men  about  Christ 
.18  if  that  they  should  know  the  truth  about  Him, 
and  not  that  they  should  become  what  knowing  the 
truth  about  Him  would  help  them  be,  were  the  final 


THE  IDEA    OF   THE  SERMON.  129 

purpose  of  my  preaching,  not  until  then  do  I  begin 
to  preach  doctrine  in  the  wrong  way  which  men  ai'e 
trying  to  describe  wlien  they  talk  about  "  doctrinal 
preaching." 

The  truth  is,  no  preaching  ever  had  any  strong 
power  that  was  not  the  preaching  of  doctrine.  Th*^ 
preachers  that  have  moved  and  held  men  have  always 
preached  doctrine.  No  exhortation  to  a  good  life 
that  does  not  put  behind  it  some  truth  as  deep  as 
eternity  can  seize  and  hold  the  conscience.  Preach 
doctrine,  preach  all  the  doctrine  that  you  know,  and 
learn  forever  more  and  more  ;  but  preach  it  always, 
not  that  men  may  believe  it,  but  that  men  may  be 
saved  by  believing  it.  So  it  shall  be  live,  not  dead. 
So  men  shall  rejoice  in  it  and  not  decry  it.  So  they 
shall  feed  on  it  at  your  hands  as  on  the  bread  of  life, 
solid  and  sweet,  and  claiming  for  itself  the  appetite 
of  man  which  God  made  for  it. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  idea  of  a  sermon  is 
so  properly  a  unit,  that  a  sermon  involves  of  necessity 
such  elements  in  combination,  the  absence  of  any 
one  of  which  weakens  the  sermon-nature,  that  the 
ordinary  classifications  of  sermons  are  of  little  con- 
sequence. We  hear  of  expository  preaching  and 
topical  sermons,  of  pi-actical  sermons,  of  hortatory 
discourses,  each  separate  species  seeming  to  stand  by 
itself.  It  seems  as  if  the  preacher  were  expected  to 
letermine  each  week  what  kind  jf  sermon  "^he  next 

9 


130  LECTURES   uN  PREACHING. 

Sunday  was  to  enjoy  and  set  himself  deliberately  to 
produce  it.  It  may  be  well,  but  I  say  frankly  that 
to  my  mind  the  sermon  seems  a  unit  and  tliat  no 
sermon  seems  complete  that  does  not  include  all  these 
elements,  and  that  the  attempt  to  make  a  sermon  of 
one  sort  alone  mangles  the  idea  and  produces  a  one- 
sided thing.  One  element  will  preponderate  in  every 
sermon  according  to  the  nature  of  the  subject  that  is 
treated,  and  the  structure  of  the  sermon  will  vary 
according  as  you  choose  to  announce  for  it  a  topic  or 
to  make  it  a  commentary  upon  some  words  of  Christ 
or  His  apostles.  But  the  mere  preponderance  of  one 
element  must  not  exclude  the  others,  and  the  dif- 
ference of  forms  does  not  really  make  a  difference  of 
sermons.  The  preaching  which  is  wholly  exposition 
men  are  apt  to  find  dull  and  pointless.  It  is  heat 
lightning  that  quivei-s  over  many  topics  but  strikes 
nowhere.  The  preaching  that  is  the  discussion  of  a 
topic  may  be  interesting,  but  it  grows  unsatisfactoiy 
because  it  does  not  fasten  itself  to  the  authority  of 
Scripture.  It  tempts  the  preacher's  genius  and  in- 
vention but  is  apt  to  send  people  away  witli  a  feeling 
that  they  have  heard  him  more  than  they  have  heard 
God.  The  sermon  which  only  argues  is  almost  sure 
to  argue  in  vain,  and  the  sermon  which  only  exhorts 
is  like  a  man  who  blows  the  wood  and  coal  to  which 
he  has  not  first  put  a  light.  Either  is  incomplete 
%lone ;    but    to    supplement    each    by    the    other    in 


THE   IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.  131 

another  sermon  is  certainly  a  very  crude,  imperfecl: 
way  to  meet  the  difficulty.  It  is  better  to  start  by 
feeling  that  every  sermon  must  have  a  solid  rest  on 
Scripture,  and  the  pointedness  which  comes  of  a  clear 
subject,  and  the  conviction  which  belongs  to  well- 
thought  argument,  and  the  warmth  that  proceeds 
from  earnest  appeal.  I  spoke  of  vagueness  as  the 
fault  that  most  of  all  attended  what  is  ordinarily 
called  expository  preaching.  Besides  this,  there  is 
the  other  fault  of  narrow  view.  I  know  that  fault 
does  not  belong  to  it  of  necessity.  I  know  that  the 
expositor  may  refuse  to  become  the  mere  ingenious 
interpreter  of  texts  and  the  distiller  of  partial  doc- 
trines out  of  one  petal  of  a  great  book  or  argument 
which  is  a  symmetrical  flower.  He  may  insist  on 
taking  in  the  purpose  of  the  whole  Epistle  as  he  com- 
ments upon  one  isolated  chapter.  He  may  claim  light 
from  the  manifold  radiance  of  the  whote  New  Testa- 
ment to  let  him  see  the  meaning  of  a  doubtful  verse. 
But  we  all  know  the  danger  of  the  mere  expositor  of 
any  book,  whether  that  book  be  Shakespeare  or  the 
Bible.  There  is  no  reason  why,  in  the  Bible  as  in 
Shakespeare,  the  minute  study  of  parts  should  not 
be  dangerous  to  the  conception  of  the  whole.  The 
same  powers  and  the  same  weaknesses  of  the  human 
mind  are  present  in  the  sacred  study  as  in  vdiat  we 
2all  the  profane  study.  The  escape  is  not  in  the 
^bandonment  of  minute  and  faithful  study,  but  in  th» 


132  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

careful  preservation  of  the  larger  purpose  and  spirit 
of  tlie  work.  Our  literature  abounds  in  illustrations 
of  ihe  difference.  Compare  the  noble  and  vivid 
pages  of  Dean  Stanley's  "  Jewish  Church  "  with  the 
labor  of  the  ordinary  textual  commentator,  and  which 
is  the  true  expositor  of  the  Old  Testament?  The 
larger  view  in  which  the  poetry  and  the  essential 
truth  resides  comes  in  the  attempt  to  grasp  the  topic 
of  the  whole.  And  so  that  preaching  which  most 
harmoniously  blends  in  the  single  sermon  all  these 
varieties  of  which  men  make  their  classifications,  the 
preaching  which  is  strong  in  its  appeal  to  authority, 
wide  in  its  grasp  of  truth,  convincing  in  its  appeal  to 
reason,  and  earnest  in  its  address  to  the  conscience 
and  the  heart,  all  of  these  at  once,  that  preaching 
comes  nearest  to  the  tj^pe  of  the  apostolical  epistles, 
is  the  most  complete  and  so  the  most  powerful  ap- 
proach of  truth  to  the  whole  man,  and  so  is  the  kind 
of  preaching  which,  with  due  freedom  granted  to  our 
jdiosyncracies,  it  is  best  for  us  all  to  seek  and  edu- 
cate. 

There  is  indeed  another  classification  of  sermons 
which  often  occurs  to  me  and  which  I  think  is  not 
without  its  use.  It  belongs  not  to  the  mere  form 
which  a  sermon  takes,  but  to  the  side  on  which  it  ap- 
liroaches  and  undertakes  to  convince  the  human  mind. 
Every  "eality  of  God  may  be  recognized  by  us  in  its 
oeauty,  its  righteousness,  oi'  its  usefulness,    I  may  see, 


THE  IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.  133 

for  instance,  of  God's  justice  either  the  absohite  beauty 
of  it,  may  stand  in  awe  before  it  as  the  perfect  utter- 
ance of  the  perfect  nature,  may  desire  to  come  near 
to  it  as  the  most  majestic  tiling  in  tlie  whole  universe, 
may  love  it  solely  for  itself.  Or  I  may  be  possessed 
with  the  relations  which  it  holds  to  my  own  moral  nat- 
ure. It  may  impress  me  not  so  much  as  a  quality  in 
Grod  as  a  relationship  between  God's  life  and  mine.  It 
may  fill  me  with  a  sense  of  sin,  make  me  realize  temp- 
tation and  stir  the  depths  of  moral  struggle  in  my  life. 
Or  yet  again,  I  may  realize  that  justice  as  the  regu- 
lative power  of  the  universe,  see  how  conformity  to  it 
means  peace  and  prosperity  from  centre  to  circum- 
ference of  this  vast  order.  I  may  rejoice  in  it  not 
for  what  it  is  but  for  what  it  does.  Of  these  three 
conceptions  of  God's  justice,  one  appeals  to  the  soul 
and  its  intuitions  of  eternal  fitness,  the  second  to  the 
conscience  and  its  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong,  the 
third  to  the  practical  instinct  with  its  love  of  visible 
achievement.  Now  here  we  have  the  suggestions  of 
three  different  sermons.  The  message  which  we  have 
to  bring  is  the  same  message,  but  we  bring  it  to  three 
different  doors  of  the  same  manhood  which  it  desires 
to  enter.  And  one  preacher  will  bring  his  message 
oftenest  to  one  door,  appealing  mostly  in  his  sei-mons 
to  the  soul,  or  to  the  conscience,  or  to  the  practical 
lense.  And  one  congregation  or  one  generation  will 
!iave  (uie  dooi  more  open  than  the  others,  its  rircuin 


/ 


134  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

stances  in  some  way  making  it  most  approachablfl 
upon  that  side.  Here  is  the  free  room  for  the  per- 
sonal differences  of  men  to  play  within  the  great  unity 
of  the  sermon  idea.  Among  the  great  French  preach- 
ers there  has  always  been  drawn  an  evident  distinc- 
tion corresponding  veiy  nearly  to  this  whicli  I  have 
defined.  Masillon  is  the  interpreter  of  the  religious  in- 
stinct, speaking  to  the  heart.  Bossuet  is  the  preacher 
of  dogma,  appealing  to  the  conscience.  Bourdaloue 
is  the  preacher  of  morality,  addressing  himself  to  rea- 
son. Either  of  these  sermons  may  be  of  the  expos- 
itory or  of  the  topical  sort.  All  of  them  are  able  to 
bring  Christ  in  some  one  of  his  offices  to  men,  as 
Priest,  Prophet,  or  King.  Each  of  them  is  capable  of 
blending  with  another.  There  is  no  such  distinction 
between  them  that  we  may  not  find  a  great  sermon 
here  and  there  where  the  three  are  met,  and  where 
Christ  in  His  completeness  as  the  satisfaction  of  the 
loving  heart,  as  the  convicter  and  guide  of  the  awak- 
ened conscience,  and  as  the  hope  and  inspiration  of  a 
laboring  humanity,  is  perfectly  set  forth.  According 
to  the  largeness  of  your  own  Christian  life  will  be 
your  power  to  preach  that  largest  sermon.  Only  I 
beg  you  to  remember  in  what  different  ways  sermons 
may  all  be  messages  of  the  Lord.  Let  it  save  you 
from  the  monotonous  narrowness  of  one  eternally  re- 
peated sermon.  And,  what  is  far  more  important, 
let  it  keep   you  from  even*  daring  to  say  witli  cruel 


THE  IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.,  135 

flil)paney  of  some  brother  who  brings  his  message  to 
another  door  of  humanity  from  you,  that  he  "  does 
not  preach  Christ." 

The  best  sermon  of  any  time  is  that  time's  best 
utterance.  More  than  its  most  ingenious  invention  or 
its  most  highly  organized  government,  it  declares  the 
point  which  that  time  has  reached.  So  I  think  that 
a  man's  best  sermon  is  the  best  utterance  of  his  life. 
It  embodies  and  declares  him.  If  it  is  really  his,  it 
tells  more  of  him  than  his  casual  intercourse  with  his 
friends,  or  even  the  revelations  of  his  domestic  life. 
If  it  is  really  God's  message  through  him,  it  brings 
him  out  in  a  Avay  that  no  other  experience  of  his  life 
has  power  to  do,  as  the  quality  of  the  trumpet  de- 
clares itself  more  clearly  when  the  strong  "man  blows 
a  blast  for  battle  through  it  than  when  a  child  whis- 
pers into  it  in  play.  Remember  this,  experience  it  in 
yourself,  and  then,  when  you  hear  your  brother 
preach,  honor  the  work  that  he  is  doing  and  listen  as 
reverently  as  you  can  to  hear  through  him  some  voice 
of  God.  They  say  that  brother  ministers  make  the 
most  critical  and  least  responsive  hearers.  I  have  not 
found  them  so.  I  have  found  them  always  fullest  of 
sympathy.  It  would  be  much  to  their  discredit  and 
excite  serious  suspicions  of  their  work  if  their  mere 
familiarity  with  its  details  made  them  less  ready  to 
feel  its  spirit  and  to  submit  to  its  power.  It  is  not 
80.  Do  not  begin  by  thinking  that  it  is  so,  ajid  you 
will  not  find  it  so. 


136  ,     LECTURES   OX  PREACHING. 

I  should  like  to  devote  part  of  what  time  remaina 
to-day  to  some  suggestions  about  the  true  subjects  of 
Bermons.  I  used  a  few  minutes  ago  the  phrase 
"preaching  Christ;"  and,  without  cant,  it  is  Christ 
that  we  are  to  preach.  But  what  is  Christ  ?  "  The 
saving  power  of  the  world,"  we  say.  Where  is  His 
power  then  to  reach  ?  Wherever  men  are  wrong  ; 
wherever  men  are  capable  of  being  better ;  wherever 
His  authority  and  love  can  make  them  better. 
Wherever  the  abundance  of  sin  has  gone  there  the 
abundance  of  grace  must  go.  There  you  and  I,  as 
ministers  of  grace,  are  bound  to  carry  it.  I  confess 
that  at  the  very  first  statement  of  it  this  idea  of 
Christ  opens  to  me  a  range  of  the  subjects,  with  which 
it  is  the  preacher's  duty  and  right  to  deal,  which  seems 
to  have  no  limit. 

But  let  us  go  more  into  particulars.  We  hear  to- 
day a  great  deal  about  how  desirable  it  is  that  the 
pulpit,  partly  because  it  is  and  partly  that  it  may 
more  fully  be,  a  power,  should  deal  more  directly 
than  it  does  with  the  special  conditions  of  the  time, 
with  the  special  vices,  and  the  special  needs  of  the 
days  in  which  we  live.  It  is  urged  that  we  ouglit  to 
hear  more  often  than  we  do  now  from  our  preachers 
■•oncerning  the  right  use  of  wealth,  concerning  the 
extravjxgance  of  society,  concerning  impurity  and  li- 
centiousress,  concerning  the  prevalimt  l;u-k  of  thor- 
l>ughness    in    our    hurried    life,   concerning    political 


THE   IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.^  137 

EoiTuption  and  misrule.  I  believe  the  cUiiiu  is  abso- 
lutely right.  I  believe  no  powerful  pulpit  ever  held 
aloof  from  the  moral  life  of  the  community  it  lived 
in,  as  the  practice  of  many  preachers,  and  the  theory- 
of  some,  would  make  our  pulpit  separate  itself  and 
confine  its  message  to  what  are  falsely  discriminated 
as  spiritual  things.  But  with  regard  to  this  interest 
of  the  pulpit  in  the  moral  conditions  of  the  day,  while 
I  most  heartily  and  even  enthusiastically  assert  its 
necessity,  I  want  to  make  one  or  two  suggestions. 
The  first  is,  that  nowhere  more  than  here  ought  the 
personal  differences  of  ministers  to  be  regarded.  Some 
men's  minds  work  abstractly,  and  others  work  con- 
cretely. One  man  sees  sin  as  an  awful,  all-pervading 
spiritual  presence  ;  another  cannot  recognize  sin  un- 
less he  sees  it  incarnated  in  some  special  vicious  act, 
which  some  man  is  doing  here  in  his  own  town.  One 
man  owns  holiness  as  an  unseen  spirit ;  to  another, 
holiness  is  vague,  but  good  deeds  strike  his  enthusi- 
asm and  stir  him  to  delight  and  imitation.  Now, 
neither  of  these  men  must  ask  the  other  man  to 
preach  just  in  his  way.  The  first  man  must  not  call 
the  second  a  "  mere  moralist ;  "  the  second  must  not 
answer  back  by  calling  his  accuser  a  pietist.  Grant- 
ing that  the  preacher  must  attack  the  specuil  sins 
around  him,  it  is  not  true  that  every  preacher,  be  the 
ttature  of  his  genius  what  it  may,  must  be  goaded  and 
driven  to  it.     It  is  good  for  us  that  there  should  be 


138      LECTURES   OX  PREACHING. 

some  men  to  preach,  as  it  would  not  be  well  that  all 
men  should  preach,  of  truth  in  its  pure,  invariable 
essence,  and  of  duty  in  its  primary  idea,  as  it  issues 
a  yet  undivided  stream  from  the  fountain  of  the  will 
of  God. 

But  again,  the  method  in  which  the  pulpit  ought 
to  approach  the  topics  of  the  time  is  even  more  im- 
))ortant.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  involved,  if  we  can 
find  it  there,  in  the  perfectly  commonplace  and  fa- 
miliar statement  that  the  visible,  moral  conditions  of 
any  life,  or  any  age,  are  only  symptoms  of  spiritual 
conditions  which  are  the  essential  thing.  But  what 
is  the  meaning  and  value  of  a  symptom  ?  Are  there 
not  two  ?  A  symptom  is  valuable,  first  as  a  sign  and 
test  of  inward  processes  which  it  is  impossible  to  ob- 
serve directly,  and  it  has  a  secondar}^  value  under  the 
law  of  reaction,  by  whlcli  a  wise  restraint  applied  to 
the  result  may  often  tend  to  weaken  and  help  destroy 
the  cause.  How  then  ,are  symptoms  to  be  treated  ? 
Always  with  reference  to  tlie  unseen  conditions  which 
they  manifest.  They  are  to  be  examined  as  tests  of 
what  these  conditions  are,  and  they  are  to  be  acted 
upon,  not  for  themselves,  but  in  the  hope  of  reaching 
those  conditions  in  behind  them.  Apply  all  this. 
You  and  I  are  preachers  in  the  midst  of  a  corrupt 
community.  All  kinds  of  evil  practices  are  rife 
around  us.  We  know  —  it  is  the  first  truth  of  the 
religion  which  we  preach  —  that  those  evil  practices 


THE  IDEA    OF  THE   SERMON.  139 

are   not   the    real-  essential    evil.      It    is    the   heart 
estranged  from  God,  the  so.d  gone  wrong,  the  unseen 
springs  of  manhood  out  of  order,  upon  which  our  eye 
is  always  fastened,  and  to  which  alone  we  know  the 
remedy  can  be  applied.     What  have  we  then  to  do 
with   these   evil  practices,  which  we   see  only  as  the 
outward  and  visible  signs  of  an  inward  and  spiritual 
disgrace?     Just  what"  I  said  above:   First,  honestly 
treat  them   as  tests;  honestly  own   that,  so   long  as 
these   exist   and   wherever  these    exist,   the  spiriUial 
condition  is  not   right ;    frankly  admit  of  any  man, 
whatever    his    professions    of    emotional    experience, 
whatever  he  believes,  whatever  he  "  feels,"  that  if  he 
does  bad  things  he  is  not  a  good  man.     So  cordially 
put  the  spiritual  processes  of  which  you  preach  within 
the  judgment  of  all  men  who  know  a  good  life  from 
a  bad  one.     And  in   the  second  place  strike  at  the 
symptom  always  for  the  sake  of  the  disease.     Aim  at 
all  kinds  of  vicious  acts.      Rebuke  dishonesty,  licen- 
tiousness, drunkenness,  cruelty,  extravagance,  but  al- 
ways strike  in  the  interest  of  the  soul  to  which  you 
are  a  messenger,  of  which  your  Master  has  given  you 
part  of  the  care.     Never  let  men   feel  that  you  and 
your  gospel  would    be  satisfied  with    mere  decency, 
Jvith  the  putting  down  of  all  vicious  life  that  left  the 
vicious  character  still  strong  behind.     Surely  such  a 
protest  against  vice  as  this  ought  to  be  far  more  earn- 
est, more  uncompromising,  mor^  self-sacrificing  than 


140  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

Diie  that  worked  on  lower  motives  and  took  shortei 
views.  It  can  make  no  concessions.  It  strikes  at  all 
vices  alike.  It  will  not  merely  try  to  exchange  one 
vice  for  another.  It  will  hate  vices  more  deeply  in 
proportion  as  it  realizes  the  depth  of  sin. 

Do  not  these  two  methods  of  dealing  with  all 
symptoms  describe  the  true  attitude  of  the  Christian 
preacher  toward  the  evident  vicious  practices  by 
which  he  is  surrounded  ?  Conceiving  of  tl^em  thus, 
he  is  neither  the  abstract  religionist  devoted  to  the 
fostering  of  certain  spiritual  conditions,  heedless  of 
how  they  show  their  worth  or  worthlessness  in  the 
moral  life  which  they  produce  ;  nor  is  he  tlie  enlight- 
ened economist,  weighing  with  anxious  heart  the  evil 
of  sins,  but  knowing  nothing  of  the  sinfulness  of  sin 
from  which  they  come.  He  is  the  messenger  of 
Christ  to  the  soul  of  man  always.  His  sermon  about 
temperance,  or  the  late  election,  or  the  wickedness  of 
oppression,  is  not  an  exception,  an  intrusion  in  tlie 
cui'rent  of  that  preaching  which  is  always  testifying 
of  the  spiritual  salvation.  He  is  ready  to  speak  on 
any  topic  of  the  day,  but  his  sermon  is  not  likely  to 
be  mistaken  for  an  article  from  some  daily  news- 
paper. It  looks  at  the  topic  from  a  loftier  height 
traces  the  trouble  to  a  deeper  source,  and  is  not  sat 
isfied  except  with  a  more  thorough  cure. 

I  do  not  know  of  any  other  principles  than  these 
which  can  be  applied  to  the  somewhat  disputed  ques- 


THE  IDEA    OF   THE   SERMON.  141 

tion  of  political  preaching.  These  seem  to  me  suffi- 
cient. I  despise,  and  ciiU  upon  you  to  despise  all 
the  weak  assertions  that  a  minister  must  not  preach 
politics  because  he  will  injure  his  influence  if  he 
does,  or  because  it  is  unworthy  of  his  sacred  office. 
The  influence  that  needs  such  watching  may  well  be 
allowed  to  die,  and,  the  more  sacred  the  preacher's 
office  is,  the  more  he  is  bound  to  care  for  all  the  in- 
terests of  every  child  of  God.  But  apply  the  prin- 
ciples which  I  laid  down,  and  I  think  we  have  a  bet- 
ter rule.  See  in  the  political  condition  the  indication 
of  the  nation's  spiritual  state,  and  aim  in  all  you  say 
about  public  affairs,  not  simply  at  securing  order  and 
peace,  but  at  making  good  men,  who  sliall  constitute 
a  "  holy  nation."  The  first  result  of  the  application 
of  these  principles  will  be  that  only  a  true  moral  is- 
sue will  provoke  your  utterance.  You  will  not  turn 
the  pulpit  into  a  place  whence  you  can  throw  out 
your  little  scheme  for  settling  a  part}^  quarrel  or  se- 
curing a  party  triumph.  But  when  some  clear  ques- 
tion of  right  and  wrong  presents  itself,  and  men  with 
some  strong  passion  or  sordid  interest  are  going 
wrong,  then  your  sermon  is  a  poor,  untimely  thing  if 
rt  deals  only  with  the  abstractions  of  eternity,  and 
das  no  word  to  help  the  men  who  are  dizzied  with  the 
whirl,  and  blinded  with  the  darkness  of  to-day.  It 
was  good  to  be  a  minister  during  the  war  of  the  Re- 
bellion.    A  clear,  strong,  moral  issue  stood  out  plain, 


142  LECTURES   ON  1  REACHING. 

and  the  preacher  luid  his  duty  as  shurpl}-  marked  as 
the  soldiers.  That  is  not  the  case  in  the  same  clear 
way  now.  It  will  not  ordinarily  be  so.  But  still,  the 
ordinary  talk  about  ministers  not  having  any  power 
in  politics  is  not  true.  In  a  land  like  ours,  wliero 
the  tone  of  the  people  is  of  vast  valiie  in  public  af- 
fairs, the  preachers  who  have  so  much  to  do  in  the 
creation  of  the  popular  tone  must  always  have  their 
part  in  politics. 

I  close  this  lecture  with  three  suggestions,  on  which 
I  had  meant  to  dwell  at  large,  but  I  have  used  up  all 
my  time. 

You  never  can  make  a  seruion  what  it  ought  to  be 
if  you  consider  it  alone.  The  service  that  accompa- 
nies it,  the  prayer  and  praise,  must  have  their  influ- 
ence upon  it. 

The  sermon  must  never  set  a  standard  which  it  is 
not  really  meant  that  men  should  try  to  realize  in 
life. 

No  sermon  to  one's  own  people  can  ever  be  con- 
ceived as  if  it  were  the  only  one.  It  must  be  part 
of  a  long  culture,  working  with  all  the  others. 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  definitions  and  sug- 
gestions, I  beg  you  to  go  away  believing  that  the 
idea  of  the  sermon  i?  not  a  complicated,  but  a  verj 
Bimple  thing. 


THE   MAKING   OF  THE   SERMON. 


T  AM  to  speak  to  3^011  to-day  about  the  making  of  a 
sermon,  and  if  you  compare  their  titles  you  "\vill  see 
in  what  relation  this  lecture  and  the  last  stand  to 
each  other,  for  the  make  of  a  sermon  must  always  be 
completely  dependent  upon  the  idea  of  a  sermon. 
The  idea  is  perfectly  supreme.  It  is  the  formative 
power  to  which  all  accidents  must  bow.  If  any  rule 
of  the  composition  or  form  contradicts  the -idea,  it  is 
rebellious  and  must  be  sacrificed  without  a  scruple. 
I  have  heard  sermons  where  it  was  evident  that  some 
upstart  rule  of  form  was  in  rebellion  against  the  essen- 
tial idea  and  the  idea  was  not  strong  enough  to  put 
the  rebellion  down,  and  the  result  was  that  the  ser- 
mon, like  a  country  in  the  tumult  of  rebellion,  had 
neither  peace  nor  power.  What  I  say  to-day  then  is 
in  subordination  to  what  I  said  before.  Any  law  of 
execution  which  I  may  lay  down  that  is  inconsistent 
with  the  idea  and  purpose  of  preaching  is  an  intruder 
vnd  must  be  thrust  aside. 

The  elements  which  determine  the  make  of  any 
particular  sermon  are  three,  the  preacher,  the  mate- 


M4  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

rial,  and  the  audience;  just  as  the  character  of  any 
battle  is  determined  by  three  elements,  the  gun  (in- 
cluding the  gunner),  the  ammunition,  and  the  fortresa 
against  which  the  attack  is  make.  The  reason  why  a 
sermon  preached  last  Sunday  in  the  Church  of  St. 
John  Lateran  at  Rome  differed  from  the  sermon 
preached  in  the  First  Congregational  Church  of  New 
Haven  must  have  been  partly  that  the  preacher  was 
a  different  sort  of  man,  partly  that  the  truth  which 
he  wanted  to  preach  was  different,  partly  that  the 
man  he  wished  to  touch  and  influence  was  different, 
at  least  in  his  conception.  Make  these  three  ele- 
ments exactly  alike,  and  all  sermons  must  be  per- 
fectly identical.  It  is  because  these  three  elements 
are  never  exactly  the  same,  and  yet  there  always  is  a 
true  resemblance,  that  we  have  all  sermons  unlike  one 
another  and  yet  a  certain  similarity  running  through 
them  all.  No  two  men  are  precisely  similar,  or  think 
of  truth  alike,  or  see  the  men  to  whom  tliey  speak  in 
the  same  light.  Consequently  the  make  of  every 
man's  sermons  must  be  different  from  the  make  of 
every  other  man's.  Nay,  we  may  carry  this  farther. 
No  live  man  at  any  one  moment  is  just  the  same  as 
himself  at  any  other  moment,  nor  does  he  see  truth 
always  alike,  nor  do  men  always  look  to  him  the 
same  ;  and  therefore  in  his  sermons  there  must  be  the 
same  general  identity  combined  with  perpetual  vari- 
ety which   there  is  in  his  life.      Mis  sermons  will  be 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  145 

\\\  like  and  yet  unlike  each  other.  And  the  making 
of  every  sermon,  while  it  may  follow  the  same  general 
rules,  will  be  a  fresh  and  vital  process,  with  the  zest 
and  freedom  of  novelty  about  it.  This  is  the  first 
thing  that  I  wish  to  say.  Establish  this  truth  in 
your  minds  and  then  independence  comes.  Then  you 
can  stand  in  the  right  attitude  to  look  at  rules  of  ser- 
mon making  which  come  out  of  other  men's  experi- 
ence. You  can  take  them  as  helpful  friends  and  not 
as  arrogant  masters.  I  wish  that  not  merely  in  ser- 
mon writing  but  in  all  of  life  we  could  all  come  to 
understand  that  independence  and  the  refusal  to  imi- 
tate and  repeat  other  people's  lives  may  come  from 
•true  modesty  as  well  as  from  pride.  To  be  independ- 
ent of  man's  dictation  is  simply  to  declare  that  we 
must  live  the  special  life  which  God  has  marked  out 
for  us  and  which  he  has  indicated  in  the  special 
powers  which  we  discover  in  ourselves.  We  are  fit 
for  no  other  life.  There  can  be  nothing  more  modest 
than  that.  It  is  not  pride  when  the  beech-tree  re- 
fuses to  copy  the  oak.  He  knows  his  limitations. 
The  only  chance  of  any  healthy  life  for  him  is  to  be 
as  full  a  beech-tree  as  he  can.  Apply  all  that,  and 
out  of  sheer  modesty  refuse  to  try  to  be  any  kind  of 
preacher  which  God  did  not  make  you  to  be. 

The  lack  of  flexibility  in  the  preacher,  resulting  in 
whe  lack  of  variety  in  the  sermon,  has  very  much  to 
do  with  our  imperfect  education.     The  true  result  of 
10 


146      LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

educatiDii  is  to  develop  in  the  individual  that  A  which 
r  have  been  speaking,  the  clear  consciousness  of  iden- 
tity together  with  a.  wide  range  of  variety.  The 
really  educated  man  will  be  always  distinctly  himself, 
and  yet  never  precisely  the  same  that  he  was  at  any 
other  moment.  His  personality  will  be  trained  both 
in  the  persistency  of  its  central  stock  and  in  its  sus- 
ceptibility and  responsiveness  to  manifold  impres- 
sions. He  will  have  at  once  a  stronger  stand  and  a 
wider  play  of  character.  But  mu  uneducated  man 
will  be  either  monotonously  and  doggedly  the  same, 
or  else  full  of  fickle  alteration.  The  defects  of  our 
education  are  seen  in  the  way  in  which  it  sometimes 
produces  the  narrow  and  obstinate  specialist,  some-- 
times  the  vague  and  feeble  amateur  in  many  works, 
but  not  often  the  strong  man  who  has  at  once  clear 
individuality  and  wide  range  of  sympathy  and  action. 
This  is  the  kind  of  man  that  the  preacher  above  all 
ought  to  be.  Education  alone,  thorough  education, 
nothing  but  true,  wise,  devoted  study  can  make  him 
80.  Education  alone  gives  a  man  at  once  a  good  stand 
and  a  good  outlook.  It  is  the  Frenchman's  rule  for 
fencing,  "Bon  pied,  bon  oeil,"  a  good  foot  and  a  good 
eye.  As  I  begin  to  speak  to  ycu  about  literary  style 
and  homiletical  construction,  I  cannot  help  once  more 
urging  upon  you  the  reed  of  hard  and  manly  study ; 
not  simply  the  study  of  language  and  style  itself,  but 
study  in  its  broader  sense,  the  study  of  truth,  of  hi* 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  14'< 

toiy,  of  philosophy  ;  for  no  man  can  have  a  richly 
Btored  mind  without  its  influencing  the  style  in  which 
he  writes  and  speaks,  making  it  at  once  thoroughly 
his  own,  and  yet  giving  it  variety  and  saving  it  from 
monotony.  I  suppose  the  power  of  an  uneducated 
man  like  Mr.  Moody  is  doing  something  to  discredit 
the  necessity  of  study  among  ministers  and  to  tempt 
men  to  rely  upon  spontaneousness  and  inspiration.  I 
honor  Mr.  Moody,  and  rejoice  in  much  of  the  work 
that  he  is  doing,  but  if  his  success  had  really  this 
effect  it  would  be  a  very  serious  deduction  from  its 
value.  When  you  see  such  a  man,  you  are  to  con- 
sider both  his  exceptionalness  and  his  limitations.  In 
some  respects  he  is  a  very  remarkable  and  unusual 
man,  and  therefore  not  a  man  out  of  whom  ordinary 
men  can  make  a  rule.  And  his  work,  valuable  as  it 
is,  stops  short  at  a  clear  line.  He  leaves  undone  what 
nothing  but  an  educated  ministry  can  do,  and  he  who 
is  most  filled  with  thankfulness  and  admiration  at  that 
man's  career  ought  to  go  the  more  earnestly  to  his 
books  to  try  to  be  such  a  preacher  as  can  help  fulfil 
tlie  work  which  the  great  revivalist  begins. 

Every  preacher's  sermon  style  then  ought  to  be  his 
twn;  that  is  the  first  principle  of  sermon  making. 
^'  The  style  is  the  man,"  said  Buffon.  Only  we  must 
remember  that  the  man  is  not  something  invariable. 
He  is  capable  of  improvement.  He  is  something  dif- 
ferent when  he  is  filled  with  knowledge  and  affection 


H8  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

and  enthusiasm,  from  what  he  was  in  his  first  empti 
ness.  The  practical  conclusion  then  that  will  coma 
from  our  first  principle  will  not  be  simply  that  every 
preacher  is  to  accept  himself  just  as  he  finds  himself, 
and  hope  for  nothing  better  ;  but  rather  this,  that  style 
is  capable  of  indefinite  cultivation,  only  that  its  main 
cultivation  must  come  through  the  cultivation  of  the 
man;  not  by  mere  critical  discipline  of  language, 
which  at  the  best  can  only  produce  correctness,  but 
by  lifting  the  whole  man  to  a  more  generous  and  ex- 
alted life,  which  is  the  only  thing  that  can  make  a 
style  truly  noble.  I  think,  indeed,  that  the  question, 
as  to  wherein  lies  the  power  of  a  sermon  style,  corre- 
sponds very  largely  with  the  question  about  the  inspi- 
ration of  the  Scriptures.  Various  ideas  have  prevailed 
about  the  point  in  which  was  lodged  that  quality  of 
the  Bible  which  makes  us  separate  it  from  other  books 
and  talk  about  it  as  inspired.  One  idea  of  inspira- 
tion puts  it  in  the  language,  and  supposes  each  word 
to  be  a  dictation  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Another  idea 
puts  it  in  the  wn-iter  and  supposes,  with  a  profounder 
philosophy,  that  the  power  of  exalted  and  truthful 
utterance  was  a  truthful  and  exalted  soul.  Another 
idea  puts  it  in  the  material.  The  history  itself  was 
full  of  God,  and  when  men  wrote  that  God-filled  his- 
tory their  writings  were  different  from  other  men's, 
uiore  full  of  the  divine  atmosphere,  because  of  the 
strange    divine    character    of   the    things  they  wrote 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  149 

about.  And  so  the  sermon  comes  forth  peculiar. 
Wherein  does  its  peculiarity  reside?  Is  it  that  a  cer- 
tain language,  certain  forms  of  speech,  belong  there 
which  do  not  belong  to  other  literature  ?  Is  it  that 
the  sermon  writer  is  in  a  condition  and  an  attitude 
that  no  other  man  ever  quite  assumes  ?  Is  it  that 
the  subjects  with  which  the  sermon  deals  are  more 
solemn,  and  more  touching,  more  divine  than  any 
others?  No  doubt  all  three  ideas  are  true  in  their 
degrees,  but  no  doubt,  also,  he  who  looks  to  the  deep- 
est truth  in  the  matter  will  get  the  deeper  power. 
He  who  aspires  to  the  strength  of  truth  and  charac- 
ter will  be  a  stronger  man  than  he  who  tries  to  pre- 
vail by  the  finish  and  completeness  of  his  language. 

Thejiistory  of  a^ar^ticulaF-eermen  begins  with  the 
selection,  of  a  topic,__  Ordinarily,  except  in  purely  ex- 
pository preaching,  that  comes  before  the  selection  of 
a  text.  And  the  ease  and  readiness  of  this  selection 
depends  upon  the  richness  of  a  man's  own  life,  and 
the  naturalness  of  his  conception  of  a  sermon.  I  can 
conceive  of  but  two  things  which  should  cause  the 
preacher  any  difficulty  in  regard  to  the  abundance  of 
subjects  for  his  preaching.  The  first  is  a  steriUty  of 
his  own  mind  ;  the  second  is  a  stilted  and  uiyiatural 
idea  of  what  the  sermon  he  is  going  to  write  must 
be.  Let  the  man's  own  mind  be  everywhere  else  ex- 
cept upon  the  things  of  God,  let  his  own  spiritual  life 


150  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

be  meagre  and  unsuggestive,  let  him  feel  no  clevelo[>' 
ing  power  in.  his  own  experience,  and  I  can  see  him 
sitting  in  despair,  or  hurrying  liither  and  thither  in 
distraction,  as  the  day  approaches  when  lie  must  talk 
of  something,  and  he  has  nothing  of  which  to  talk. 
Or  let  him  once  get  the  idea  that  every  sermon,  or 
that  any  particular  sermon,  is  to  be  a  great  sermon, 
a  "pulpit-effort,"  as  the  dreadful  epithet  runs,  and 
again  he  is  all  lost.  Which  of  these  quiet,  simple, 
practical  themes  that  offer  themselves  is  suitable  to 
bear  the  aspirations  and  contortions  of  his  eloquence? 
The  first  of  the  difficulties  I  say  no  more  about,  onl^ 
because  I  seem  to  have  talked  to  you  of  nothing  else 
than  the  way  in  which  there  must  be  a  man  behind 
every  sermon,  though,  indeed,  I  do  think  that  the 
most  important,  I  had  almost  said  the  only  important 
thing  in  this  matter  of  learning  to  preach.  But  I  say 
no  more  of  that  just  now.  This  other  matter  let  me 
dwell  on  for  a  moment.  The  notion  of  a  great  ser- 
mon, either  constantly  or  occasionally  haunting  the 
preacher,  is  fatal.  It  hampers,  as  I  said,  the  freedom 
of  utterance.  Many  a  true  and  helpful  word  which 
your  people  need,  and  which  you  ouglit  to  say  to 
them,  will  seem  unworthy  of  the  dignity  of  your 
great  discourse.  Some  poor  exhorter  coming  along 
the  next  we(?k,  and  saying  it,  will  sweep  the  last 
recollection  of  3'our  selfish  achievement  out  of  the 
minds  of  people.     Never  tolerate  Xny  Idea    f  the  dig- 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  i51 

jiiiy  of  a  sermon  which  will  keep  you  from  saying 
anything  in  it  which  you  ought  to  say,  or  which  your 
people  ought  to  hear.  It  is  the  same  folly  as  making 
your  chair  so  fine  that  you  dare  not  sit  down  in  it. 
There  will  come  great,  or  at  least  greater  sermons  in 
every  live  minister's  career,  sermons  which  will  stand 
out  for  vigor  and  beauty,  distinctly  above  his  ordi- 
nary work,  but  they  will  come  without  deliberation, 
the  flowers  of  his  ministry,  the  offspring  of  moments 
which  found  his  powers  at  their  best  activity  and 
him  most  regardless  of  effect.  It  is  good  and  en- 
couraging, it  helps  one's  faith  in  human  nature,  and 
it  has  an  influence  to  keep  us  from  the  pulpit's  beset- 
ting follies,  when  we  see  how  universally  the  deliber- 
ate attempt  to  make  great  sermons  fails.  They  never 
have  the  influence,  and  they  very  seldom  win  the 
praise  that  they  desire.  The  sermons  of  which  no- 
body speaks,  the  sermons  which  come  from  mind  and 
heart,  and  go  to  heart  and  mind  with  as  little  con- 
sciousness as  possible  of  tongue  and  ear,  those  are  the 
sermons  that  do  the  work,  that  make  men  better  men, 
and  really  sink  into  their  affections.  They  are  like 
the  perfect  days  when  no  man  says,  "  How  fine  it 
is  ; "  but  when  every  man  does  his  best  work  and 
feels  most  fully  what  a  blessed  thing  it  is  to  live. 

I  think,  too,  that  this  wrong  notion  about  sermons 
lias  led  to  a  great  deal  of  the  bad  talk  which  is  run- 
viing  about  now  among  both  clergymen  and  laymen 


152  LECTURES   ON  PIlEACIUXr;. 

about  the  excessive  amount  of  preacliing.  "  Ilow  is 
it  possible,"  thej'  say,  "  that  any  man  should  bring 
forth  two  strong,  good  sermons  every  week  ?  It  is 
impossible.  Let  us  have  only  one  sermon  every  Sun- 
day ;  and  if  the  people  will  insist  on  coming  twice  to 
the  church,  let  us  cheat  them  with  a  little  poor  music 
and  a  '  few  remarks,'  and  call  it  '  vesper  service,'  or 
let  us  tell  a  few  stories  to  the  Sunday-school,  and  call 
it  '  children's  church  ;  '  but  let  us  not  preach  twice  to 
men  and  women.  It  is  impossible."  It  is  impossi- 
ble, if  by  a  sermon  you  intend  a  finished  oration.  It 
is  as  impossible  to  produce  that  tv.-ice,  as  it  is  unde- 
sirable to  produce  it  once  a  week.  But  that  a  man 
who  lives  with  God,  whoee  delight  is  to  study  God's 
words  in  the  Bible,  in  the  world,  in  history,  in  human 
nature,  who  is  thinking  about  Christ,  and  man,  and 
salvation  every  day,  that  he  should  not  be  able  to 
talk  about  these  things  of  his  hi;art,  seriously,  lov- 
ingly, thoughtfully,  simply,  for  two  half  hours  every 
week,  is  inconceivable,  and  I  do  not  believe  it.  Cast 
off  the  haunting  incubus  of  tiie  notion  of  e^reat  ser- 
mons. Care  not  for  your  sermon,  but  for  your  truth, 
and  for  your  people  ;  and  subjects  will  spring  up  on 
every  side  of  you,  and  the  chances  to  preach  upun 
Uietn  will  be  all  too  few.  I  beg  you  not  to  fall  into 
this  foolish  talk  about  too  much  preaching.  It  is  not 
for  us  ministers  to  say  that  there  is  no  need  of  more 
\han  one  discourse  a  day.     If  you  have  anything  to 


VHE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  153 

Bay,  and  say  it  bravely  and  simply,  men  will  come  to 
hear  you.  If  you  will  preach  as  faithfully  and 
thoughtfully  at  the  second  service  as  at  the  first,  the 
second  service  will  not  be  deserted.  At  any  rate,  it 
is  our  place  to  stand  by  our  pulpits  till  men  have  de- 
serted us,  and  not,  for  the  sake  of  saving  our  own 
credit,  to  shut  the  church  doors  while  they  are  still 
ready  to  come  and  hear. 

But  to  return  more  closely  to  our  subject;  having 
settled  in  general  what  topics  may  be  preached  upon, 
how  shall  the  topic  for  a  single  sermon,  the  sermon 
for  next  Sunday,  be  selected  ?  I  answer  that  there 
are  three  principles  which  have  a  right  to  enter  into 
the  decision.  They  are  the  bent  of  the  preacher's 
inclination,  the  symmetry  and  "  scale "  .of  all  his 
preaching,  and  the  peculiar  needs  of  his  people.  I 
mention  the  three  in  the  order  in  which  they  are  apt 
to  present  themselves  to  the  minister  as  he  makes  his 
choice.  Reverse  that  order,  begin  with  the  last,  and 
you  have  the  elements  of  a  right  choice  rightly  ar- 
ranged. First  comes-  the  sympathetic  and  wise  per- 
ception of  what  the  people  need  ;  not  necessarily 
what  they  consciously  want,  though,  remember,  no 
more  niicessarily  what  they  do  not  Avant.  This  per- 
ception is  not  the  sudden  result  of  an  impression  that 
has  come  from  some  lively  conversation  which  has 
sprung  up  on  a  parish  visit,  not  the  desire  to  ( onfute 
the  cavil  of  some  single  captious  disputant ;  it    a  tlm 


I'Ti  LECTURES   OX  PREACHING. 

aggregate  effect  of  a  large  syini)atlietic  intercourse, 
the  fruit  of  a  true  knowledge  of  luiman  nature,  com- 
bined witli  a  special  knowledge  of  these  epecial  peo- 
ple, aiid  a  cordial  interest  in  the  circumstances  under 
which  they  live.  That  evidently  is  no  easy  thing  to 
win.  It  requires  of  a  minister  that  timeliness  and 
that  breadth  which  it  is  very  hard  to  find  in  union 
with  each  other.  It  is  not  something  to  be  picked  up 
in  the  easy  intimacy  of  parochial  visiting.  It  mav  bo 
helped  there,  but  it  must  be  born  of  an  alert  mind, 
fully  interested  in  the  times  in  which  it  lives,  and  a 
devout  soul  really  loving  the  souls  with  which  it  had 
to  deal. 

The  second  element  of  choice,  the  desire  to  pre- 
serve a  symmetry  and  proportion  in  our  preacliing,  of 
course  comes  in  to  modify  the  action  of  the  first. 
Not  merely  by  our  present  perception  of  what  people 
need,  but  in  relation  to  our  whole  scheme  of  teach- 
ing, to  what  has  gone  before  and  what  is  to  come 
after,  the  subject  of  next  Sunday  is  to  be  selected.  I 
have  suggested  to  you  in  another  lecture  how  great  a 
luilp  the  ancient  calendar  of  the  church  year  is  in 
this  respect.  The  prolonged  and  connected  course  of 
sermons  is  a  safeguai'd  against  mere  flightiness  and 
partialncss  in  the  jlioice  of  topics.  The  only  serious 
danger  about  a  course  of  sermons  is,  that  where  the 
serpent  grows  too  long  it  is  difficult  to  have  the  vilal- 
ity  distributed  through  all  his  length,  and  eren  to  hiw 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  io5 

last  extremity.  Too  many  courses  of  sermoiik  3tart 
with  a  very  vital  head,  that  draws  behind  it  by  and 
by  a  \eiy  lifeless  tail.  The  head  springs  and  the  tail 
crawls,  and  so  the  beast  makes  no  graceful  progress. 
I  think  that  a  set  and  formally  announced  course  of 
Bermons  very  seldom  preserves  both  its  symmetry  and 
its  interest.  The  system  of  long  courses  is  apt  to  se- 
cure proportion  at  too  great  an  expense  of  sponta- 
neity. The  only  sure  means  of  securing  the  result 
is  orderliness  in  the  preacher's  mind  ;  the  grasp  of 
Christian  truth  as  a  system,  and  of  the  Christian  life 
as  a  steady  movement  of  the  whole  nature  through 
Christ  to  the  Father. 

Then  comes  the  third  principle  by  which  the  choice 
is  regulated,  the  principle  that  a  man  can  preach  best 
about  what  he  at  that  moment  wishes  to  preach 
about,  the  element  of  the  preacher's  own  disposition. 
You  can  see  whj'^  it  should  not  be  made  the  first  ele- 
ment. I  could  tell  you  of  pulpits  which  have  sinned 
and  failed  by  making  it  the  first  element.  But  you 
can  see,  also,  why  it  must  come  in  at  least  as  the  third 
element.  It  gives  the  freshness  and  joyousness  and 
spring  to  the  other  two.  You  cannot  think  of  a  peo- 
ple listening  with  pleasure  or  vivacity  to  a  sermon  on 
a  subject  which  thej'  knew  the  minister  thought  they 
Reeded  to  hear  about,  and  thought  the  time  had  come 
to  preach  about,  but  which  they  also  knew  that  he 
did  not  care  for,  and  did  not  want  to  preach  upon. 


156      LECTURhS   OX  PREACHING. 

The  personal  interest  of  the  preacher  is  the  buoyant 
air  that  fills  the  mass  and  lifts  it. 

These  three  considerations  then  settle  the  sermon's 
topic.  Evidently  neither  is  sufficient  by  itself.  The 
sermon  preached  only  with  reference  to  the  people's 
needs  is  heavy.  The  sermon  preached  foi"  symmetry  is 
formal.  The  sermon  preached  with  sole  reference  to 
the  preacher's  wish,  is  whimsical.  The  constant  con- 
sideration of  all  three  makes  preaching  always  strong 
and  always  fresh.  When  all  three  urgently  unite  to 
settle  the  topic  of  some  special  sermon  I  do  not 
see  why  Ave  may  not  prepare  that  sermon  in  a  solemn 
exliihiration,  feeling  sure  that  it  is  God's  will  that  we 
should  preach  upon  that  topic  then ;  and,  when  it  is 
written,  go  forth  with  it  on  Sunday  to  our  pulpit, 
declaring,  almost  with  the  certainty  of  one  of  the  old 
prophets,  —  "  The  Word  of  tlie  Lord  came  unto  me, 
saying." 

Let  me  add  tliis,  that  the  meeting  of  these  various 
elements  of  choice  is  clearest  when  the  selection  is 
most  deliberate.  Always  have  the  topic  of  your  ser- 
mon in  your  mind  as  long  as  possible  before  you  begin 
your  preparation.  Whatever  else  is  hasty  and  extem- 
poraneous, let  it  not  be  your  decision  as  to  what  you 
will  preach  about. 

The  subject  chosen,  next  will  come  the  special  prep- 
aration for  tlie  sermon.  This  ought  to  consist  mostly 
ID  bringing  together,  and  arranging,  and  illuminating, 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  157 

a  knowledge  of  the  subject  and  thought  about  it 
which  has_ali-eady.  i.eeii_iiL_lhe -^js&essioft  of  tlie 
preacher.  I  think  that  the  less  of  special  preparation 
tliat  is  needed  for  a  sermon,  the  better  the  sermon  is. 
The  best  sermon  would  be  that  whose  thoughts, 
though  carefully  arranged,  and  lighted  up  with  every 
illustration  that  could  make  them  clearer  for  this 
special  appearance,  were  all  old  thoughts,  familiar  to 
the  preacher's  mind,  long  a  part  of  his  experience. 
Here  is  suggested,  as  you  see,  a  clear  and  important 
difference  between  two  kinds  of  preachers.  One 
preacher  depends  for  his  sermon  on  special  reading. 
Each  discourse  is  the  result  of  work  done  in  the 
week  in  which  it  has  been  written.  All  his  study 
is  with  reference  to  some  immediately  pressing  oc- 
casion. Another  preacher  studies  and  thinks  with  far 
more  industry,  is  always  gathering  truth  into  his 
mind,  but  it  is  not  gathered  with  reference  to  the 
next  sermon.  It  is  truth  sought  for  truth's  sake,  and 
for  that  largeness  and  ripeness  and  fullness  of  char- 
acter which  alone  can  make  him  a  strong  preacher. 
Which  is  the  better  method  ?  The  latter  beyond  all 
doubt.  In  the  first  place,  the  man  of  special  prepa- 
rations is  always  crude  ;  he  is  always  tempted  to  take 
ap  some  half  considered  thought  that  strikes  him  in 
the  hurry  of  his  reading,  and  adopt  it  suddenly,  and 
Bet  it  before  his  people,  as  if  it  were  his  true  convic- 
tion.   Many  a  minister's  old  sermons  are  scattered  alJ 


i.58  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

over  with  ideas  which  he  never  held,  but  which  once 
held  him  for  a  week,  like  the  camps  in  other  men's 
forests  where  a  wandering  hunter  has  slept  for  a 
single  night.  The  looseness  and  falseness,  the  weak- 
ening of  the  essential  sacredness  of  conviction  which 
must  come  from  years  of  such  work,  any  one  may  see. 
And  in  the  second  place  the  immediate  preparation 
for  a  sermon  is  something  that  the  people  always  feel. 
They  know  the  difference  between  a  sermon  that  has 
been  crammed,  and  a  sermon  Avhich  has  been  thought 
long  before,  and  of  which  only  the  form,  and  the  illus- 
trations, and  the  special  developments,  and  the  appli- 
cation of  the  thought,  are  new.  Some  preachers  are 
always  preaching  tlie  last  book  which  they  have  read, 
and  their  congregations  always  find  it  out.  The  feel- 
ing of  superficialness  and  thinness  attaches  to  all  they 
do.  The  exegesis  of  a  passage  which  the  man  never 
thought  of  till  lie  began  to  preach  about  it  may  be 
clever  and  suggestive,  but  it  inspires  no  confidence. 
I  do  not  rest  on  it  with  even  that  amount  of  assurance 
which  the  same  man's  careful  study  would  inspire. 
It  is  got  up  for  the  occasion.  It  is  like  a  politician's 
opinions  just  before  election.  But  the  strongest  rea- 
son for  the  rule  which  I  am  stating  come.«»  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  sermon  on  which  I  have  dwelt 
BO  much.  The  sermon  is  truth  and  man  togetlxer  ; 
it  is  the  truth  brought  through  the  man.  The  per- 
•onal  element  is  essential.     Now  the  tru^ll  which  tbe 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE  SERMON.  159 

preacher  has  gathered  on  Friday  for  the  sermon 
which  he  preaches  on  Sunday,  has  come  across  tlie 
man,  but  it  has  not  come  through  the  man.  It  has 
never  been  wrought  into  his  experience.  It  comes 
weighted  and  winged  with  none  of  his  personal  life. 
If  it  is  true,  it  is  a  book's  truth,  not  a  man's  truth 
that  we  get.     It  does  not  make  a  full  real  sermon. 

If  I  am  right  in  this  idea,  then  it  will  follow  that 
the  preacher's  life  must  be  a  life  of  large  accumula- 
tion. He  must  not  be  always  trying  to  make  ser- 
mons, but  always  seeking  truth  and  out  of  the  truth 
which  he  has  won  the  sermons  will  make  themselves. 
I  can  remember  how,  before  I  began  to  preach,  every 
book  I  read  seemed  to  spring  into  a  sermon.  It 
seemed  as  if  one  could  read  nothing  without  sitting 
down  instantly  and  turning  it  into  a  discourse.  But 
as  I  began  and  went  on  preaching,  the  sermons  that 
came  of  special  books  became  less  and  less  satisfac- 
tory and  more  and  more  rare.  Some  trutli  whiuh 
one  has  long  known,  stirred  to  peculiar  activity  by 
something  that  has  happened  or  by  contact  with 
some  other  mind,  makes  the  best  sermon  ;  as  the 
best  dinner  comes  not  from  a  hurried  raid  upon  the 
caterer's,  but  from  the  resources  of  a  constantly  well- 
furnished  house.  Constant  quotations_  in^  sermons 
ftre^I-think,  a  sign  of  the  same  crudeness.  They 
show  an  undigested  knowledge.  They  lose  the 
power  of  personality.     They  daub  the  wall  with  an- 


160  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

tempered  mortar.  Here  is  the  need  of  bioad  jiud 
generous  culture.  Learn  to  study  for  the  sake  of 
truth,  learn  to  think  for  the  profit  and  tlie  joy  of 
thinking.  Then  your  sermon  shall  be  like  the  leaping 
of  a  fountain  and  not  like  the  pumping  of  a  pump. 

For  over  six  hundred  years  now  it  has  been  the 
almost  invariable  custom  of  Christian  preachers  to 
take  a  text  from  Scripture  and  associate  their 
thoughts  more  or  less  strictly  with  that.  For  the 
first  twelve  Christian  centuries  there  seems  to  have 
been  no  such  prevailing  habit.  This  fact  ought  to 
be  kept  in  mind  whenever  the  custom  of  a  text  shows 
any  tendency  to  become  despotic  or  to  restrain  in 
any  way  the  liberty  of  prophesying.  At  the  present 
day  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  change  in  the 
way  of  considering  the  Bible  which  belongs  to  our 
times  has  had  an  influence  upon  our  feeling  with  re- 
gard to  texts  and  our  treatment  of  them.  The  unity 
of  the  Bible,  the  relation  of  its  parts,  its  organic 
life,  the  essentialness  of  every  part  and  yet  the  dis- 
tinct difference  in  worth  and  dignity  of  the  several 
parts,  these  are  now  familiar  ideas  as  they  were  not 
a  few  years  ago.  There  was  a  time  when  to  many 
people  the  Bible  stood,  not  merely  a  collection  of 
various  books,  all  equally  tlie  Word  of  God,  all 
equally  useful  to  men,  but  also  as  a  succession  of 
verses,  all  true,  all  edifying,  all  vital  with  the  Gospel. 
A.  page  of  the  Bible  torn  out  at  random  and  blown 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  161 

into  some  savage  island  seemed  to  have  in  it  some 
power  of  salvation.  The  result  of  such  a  feeling 
was,  of  course,  to  clothe  the  single  text  with  inde- 
pendent sacredness  and  meaning.  It  hardly  mattered 
from  what  part  of  the  Bible  it  might  come.  Solo^ 
mon's  Song  and  St.  John's  Gospel  were  preached 
from  as  if  they  taught  the  same  truth  with  the  same 
authority.  The  cynical  author  of  the  Ecclesiastes 
was  made  to  utter  the  same  message  as  the  hopeful 
and  faithful  St.  Paul.  This  is  not  the  place  to  re- 
count the  causes  for  the  change,  nor  to  estimate  its 
value  or  its  dangers.  Considered  simpl}'^  as  it  has 
affected  the  preacher's  relation  to  the  Bible  I  think 
there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the,  improvement  it  has 
brought.  It  has  made  the  single  text  of  less  impor- 
tance. It  has  led  men  to  desire  an  entrance  into  the 
heart  and  spirit  of  the  Bible.  It  has  made  biblical 
study  to  consist,  not  in  the  weighing  of  text  against 
text,  but  in  the  estimating  of  great  streams  of  ten- 
dency, the  following  of  great  lines  of  thought,  the 
apprehension  of  the  spirit  of  great  spiritual  thinkers 
who  "had  the  mind  of  Christ."  The  single  verse  is 
no  longer  hke  a  jewel  set  in  a  wall  which  one  may 
pluck  out  and  carry  off  as  an  independent  thing.  It  is 
f\  window  by  which  we  may  look  through  the  wall  and 
tee  the  richness  it  incloses.  Taken  out  of  its  place 
it  has  no  value.  To  enter  thoroughly  into  the  spirit 
of  this  new  and  better  relation  to  the  Bible  seems  to 
11 


162  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

me  to  be  all  that  the  preacher  needs  to  guide  hnn 
with  reference  to  the  selection  and  the  use  of  texts. 
Make  them  always  windows.  Go  up  and  look 
tlirough  them  and  then  tell  the  people  what  you  see. 
Keep  them  in  their  places  in  the  wall  of  truth,  i 
would  not  say  that  it  is  not  good  to  use  them,  though 
certainly  there  may  be  true  sermons  without  theii>. 
They  are  like  golden  nails  to  hold  our  preaching  to 
the  Bible.  Whether  the  subject  spring  out  of  the 
text  as  stating  the  divine  philosophy  that  underlies 
some  Scripture  incident,  or  the  text  spring  out  of  the 
subject  as  describing  some  incident  that  illustrates 
divine  ])hilosophy,  is  unimportant.  There  are  both 
kinds  of  sermons  and. both  kinds  are  good.  Only,  as 
one  rule  that  has  no  exceptions,  let  your  use  of  texts 
be  real.  Never  make  them  mean  what  they  do  not 
mean.  In  the  name  of  taste  and  reverence  alike,  let 
there  be  no  tNvists  and  puns,  no  dealing  with  the 
word  of  God  as  it  Avould  be  insulting  to  deal  with  the 
word  of  any  friend.  The  Bible  has  suffered  in  the 
hands  of  many  Christian  preachers  what  the  block 
of  wood  which  the  savage  ch(;oses  for  his  idol  suffers 
from  its  worshipper.  The  same  selection  which  con- 
secrates it  as  moi'e  sacred  than  other  blocks  of  wood 
condemns  it  also  to  have  all  his  ugly  fancies  and  fan- 
tastic conceits  painted  and  carved  upon  it.  It  is  the 
most  sacred  and  most  hideous  block  of  wood  in  the 
fillage      So  the  sacredneSs  of  the  Bible  has  subjected 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  163 

it  to  a  usage  that  no  other  book  has  received.  Such 
a  fantastic  and  irreverent  way  of  manifesting  our 
reverence  has  lasted  too  long.  It  is  time  that  it  were 
stopped.  I  beg  you  to  do  what  you  can  to  stop  it. 
At  least  make  your  own  use  of  the  Bible  reverent 
and  true.  Never  draw  out  of  a  text  a  meaning 
which  you  know  is  not  there.  If  your  text  has  not 
your  truth  in  it,  find  some  other  text  which  has.  Jf 
^y ou  can  find  no  text  for  it  in  the  Bible,  then  preach 
on  something  else. 

I  pass  on  to  a  few  remarks,  which  will  be  mere 
suggestions,  about  the  style  of  sermons.  The  mat- 
ter will  control  the  style  if  it  is  free.  The  object  of 
every  training  of  style  is  to  make  it  so  simple  and 
tlexible  an  organ  that  through  it  the  moving  and 
changing  thought  can  utter  itself  freely.  I  pity  any 
man  who  writes  the  same  upon  all  topics.  He  is  evi- 
dently a  slave  to  himself.  To  be  yourself,  yet  not  to 
be  haunted  by  an  image  of  yourself  to  which  you  are 
continually  trying  to  correspond,  that  is  the  secret  of 
a  style  at  once  characteristic  and  free,  i  go  to  hear 
a  preacher  whose  style  is  peculiarly  his  own,  and  very 
often  indeed  I  find  him  a  slave  to  his  own  peculiari- 
ties. He  must  not  think  anything  except  what  is 
capable  of  being  said  in  a  certain  way.  A  true  style  is 
like  a  suit  of  the  finest  cliain  armor,  so  -strong  that  the 
thought  can  go  into  battle  with  it,  but  so  flexible  that 
t  can  hold  the  pencil  in  its  steel  fingers  for  the  most 


164       .        LECTURES   ON   PREACHING. 

delicate  painting.  For  the  acquisition  of  such  a  style 
no  labor  is  too  great.  I  think  that  it  is  good  for 
every  minister  to  write  something  besides  sermons,  ^ 
books,  articles,  essays,  at  least  letters ;  provided  he 
has  control  of  himself  and  still  remains  the  preacher, 
and  does  not  become  an  amateur  in  literature  instead. 
If  he  can  do  it  rightly,  it  frees  him  from  the  tyranny 
of  himself,  and  keeps  him  in  contact  with  larger 
standards.  Some  of  our  noblest  thinkers  fail  of  effect 
for  want  of  an  organ  of  utterance,  a  free  pulpit  style. 
The  trouble  with  them,  often,  is  that  they  never 
wrote  anything  but  sermons.  Indeed  I  do  not  think 
there  is  any  such  thing  as  a  sermon-style  proper.  He 
who  can  write  other  things  well,  give  him  the  soul 
and  purpose  and  knowledge  of  a  preacher  and  he  will 
write  you  a  good  sermon.  But  he  who  cannot  write 
anything  well  cannot  write  a  sermon  well,  although 
we  often  think  he  can.  To  him  who  has  no  literary 
Bivill  all  subjects  are  alike.  If  you  cannot  swim,  it 
matters  not  whether  there  be  twenty  or  forty  feet  of 
water. 

In  a  word  then  I  should  say,  get  facility  of  utter 
ance  where  you  can  ;  in  part  at  least,  outside  of  ser 
mon  writing.  Make  your  style  characteristic  and 
forcible  by  never  writing  unless  you  have  something 
tliat  you  ically  want  to  s;iy  ;  then  let  the  chan(.""s  of 
your  truth  freely  play  within  it  and  shape  its  special 
forms.     A   style   which  is   really  a  man's  own   will 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON  105 

grow  as  long  as  he  grows.  One  of  the  beut  things 
about  Macaulay's  life  is  his  belief  that  ay  a  writer  he 
was  improving  to  the  last.  It  belonged  to  thaf  vital- 
ity of  which  the  man  and  the  writing  were  both  so 

full. 

The  range  of  sermon  writing  gives  it  a  capacity  of 
various  vices  which  no  other  kind  of  composition  can 
presume  to  rival.  The  minister  may  sin  in  the  same 
sermon  by  grandiloquence  and  meanness,  by  exag- 
geration and  inadequacy.  He  needs  a  many  sided 
watchfulness,  or  rather  a  perfectly  true  literary  nat- 
ure, in  order  that  he  may  do  what  Roger  Ascham 
so  quaintly  and  tellingly  sums  up  thus,  "  in  Genere 
Sublimi  to  avoid  Nimium,  in  Mediocri  to  atteyne 
Satis,  in  Humili  to  eschew  Parum."  The  way  that 
he  advises  to  do  it  is  to  study  Cicero.  Certainly, 
stated  more  generally,  the  true  way  is  to  know  first 
what  style  is  for,  that  it  is  an  instrument  and  not 
an  end,  and  then  as  an  instrument  to  perfect  it  by 
every  noble  intimacy  and  laborious  practice. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  speak  of  this  matter  of 
style  without  saying  something  of  the  danger  of  imi- 
tation and  the  way  to  guard  against  it.  It  is  con- 
nected with  that  personalness  of  the  work  of  preach- 
ing about  which  I  have  said  so  much.  A  successful 
preacher  is  not  like  a  successful  author.  He  stands 
out  himself  more  prominently  through  his  work 
Men  reahze  him  more  and  feel  in  themselves  the  same 


166  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

powers  by  which  he  has  succeeded.  A  mere  finished 
result  such  as  the  author  gives  us  in  liis  book  does 
not  excite  the  desire  of  imitation  like  the  sight  of  the 
process  going  oti  in  personal  action  before  us  in  the 
pulpit.  This  is  the  reason  why  those  preachers  whose 
power  has  in  it  the  largest  element  of  personality  are 
the  richest  in  imitators.  There  are  some  strong 
voices  crying  in  the  wilderness  who  fill  the  land  with 
echoes.  There  are  some  preachers  who  have  done 
noble  work,  of  whom  we  are  often  compelled  to  ques- 
tion whether  the  work  that  they  have  accomplished 
is  after  all  greater  than  the  harm  that  they  have  in- 
nocently done  by  spoiling  so  many  men  in  doing  it. 
They  have  gone  through  the  ministry,  as  a  savage 
goes  through  the  forest,  blazing  his  way  upon  the 
trees  that  stand  around  him,  so  that  you  can  tell  as 
you  travel  through  the  land  just  where  they  have 
been  by  the  tones  of  voice  and  the  turns  of  sentences 
which  they  have  left  behind  them.  They  leave  their 
imitators  behind  them  when  they  die,  and  in  a  sense 
which  is  not  pleasant  "•  being  dead  yet  speak."  Often 
the  circle  of  one  man's  influence  widens,  growing 
feebler  and  feebler  until  it  meets  the  wave  that  is 
spreading  from  another  centre,  another  popular  pul- 
pit,  and  only  there  they  obliterate  each  other  and 
calmness  is  restored  and  freedom  to  be  oneself  is  r& 
tisserted. 

The  dangers  of  imitation  are  two  —  one  positive, 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  167 

Ihe  other  negative.  There  is  evil  in  what  you  get 
from  him  whom  you  imitate  and  there  is  a  loss  of 
your  own  peculiar  power.  The  positive  evil  comes 
from  the  fact  that  that  which  is  worst  in  any  man  is 
always  the  most  copiable.  And  the  spirit  of  the  copy- 
ist is  blind.  He  cannot  discern  the  real  seat  of  the 
power  that  he  admires.  He  fixes  on  some  little  thing 
and  repeats  that  perpetually  as  if  so  he  could  get  the 
essential  greatness  of  his  hero.  There  is  a  passage 
in  Macaulay's  diary  which  is  full  of  philosophy.  "  I 
looked  through ,"  he  says.  "  He  is,  I  see,  an  im- 
itator of  me.  But  I  am  a  very  unsafe  model.  My 
manner  is,  I  think,  and  the  world  thinks,  on  the 
whole  a  good  one,  but  it  is  very  near  to  a  very  bad 
manner  indeed,  and  those  clear  characteristics  of  my 
style  which  are  the  most  easily  copied  are  the  most 
questionable."  All  this  is  very  true  of  ministers. 
There  is  hardly  any  good  pulpit  style  among  us  which 
is  not  very  near  to  a  very  bad  style  indeed,  and  the 
most  prominent  characteristics  are  very  often  the 
most  questionable.  The  obtuseness  of  the  imitator  is 
amazing.  I  remember  going  years  ago  with  an  intel- 
ligent friend  to  hear  a  great  orator  lecture.  The  dis- 
LDurse  was  rich,  thoughtful,  glowing,  and  delightful. 
As  we  came  away  my  companion  seemed  meditative. 
By  and  by  he  said  "  Did  you  see  where  his  power 
lay  ?  "  I  felt  unable  to  analyze  and  epitomize  in  an 
iTwtant  such  a  complex  result  and  meekly  I  said  "  No. 


168  LECTURES   ON  PREACITING. 

did  you?  "Yes,"  he  replied  briskly,  "I  watched 
him  and  it  is  in  the  double  motion  of  his  hand. 
When  he  wanted  to  solemnize  and  calm  and  subdue 
us  he  turned  the  palm  of  his  hand  down  ;  when  he 
wanted  to  elevate  and  inspire  us  he  turned  the  palm 
of  his  hand  up.  That  was  it."  And  that  Avas  all  the 
man  had  seen  in  an  eloquent  speech.  He  was  no 
fool,  but  he  was  an  imitator.  He  was  looking  for  a 
single  secret  for  a  multifarious  effect.  I  suppose  he 
has  gone  on  from  that  day  to  this  turning  his  hand 
upside  down  and  downside  up  and  wondering  that 
nobody  is  either  solemnized  or  inspired. 

The  negative  evil  of  imitation,  the  loss  of  a  man's 
own  personal  power  is  even  more  evident  and  more 
melancholy.  Ii  it  were  only  the  men  who  were  inca- 
pable of  any  manner  of  their  own  that  caught  up 
other  people's  manners  it  would  not  be  so  bad,  but 
often  strong  men  do  it.  Men  imitate  others  who  are 
every  way  their  inferiors  and  so  some  pretentious 
blockhead  not  merely  gives  us  himself,  but  loses  for 
us  the  simple  and  straightforward  power  of  some  bet- 
ter man,  as  a  log  of  wood  lodged  just  in  the  neck  of 
the  channel  stops  the  water  of  a  free,  live  stream. 

I  am  convinced  that  the  only  escape  from  the  power 
of  imitation  when  it  has  once  touched  us  —  and  re- 
member it  often  touches  us  without  our  conscious- 
ness—  you  and  I  may  be  imitating  other  men  to-day 
and  not  ut  all  aware  of    t  —  lies  in  a  deeper  serious* 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  160 

ness  about  all  our  work.  What  we  need  is  a  fullei 
sense  of  personal  responsibility  and  a  more  real  rev- 
erence for  the  men  who  are  greater  than  we  are. 
Give  a  man  real  personal  sense  of  his  own  duty  and 
he  must  do  it  in  his  own  way.  The  temptation  of 
imitation  is  so  insidious  that  you  cannot  resist  it  by 
the  mere  determination  that  you  will  not  imitate. 
You  must  bring  a  real  self  of  your  own  to  meet  this 
intrusive  vself  of  another  man  that  is  crowding  in  upon 
you.  Cultivate  your  own  sense  of  duty.  The  only 
thing  that  keeps  the  ocean  from  flowing  back  into 
the  river  is  that  the  river  is  always  pouring  down 
into  the  ocean.  And  again,  if  you  really  reverence 
a  great  man,  if  you  look  up  to  and  rejoice  in  his  good 
work,  if  you  truly  honor  him,  you  will  get  at  his 
spirit,  and  doing  that  you  will  cease  to  imitate  his 
outside  ways.  You  insult  a  man  when  you  try  to 
catch  his  power  by  moving  your  arms  or  shaping 
your  sentences  like  his,  but  you  honor  him  when 
you  try  to  love  truth  and  do  God's  will  the  better 
for  the  love  and  faithfulness  which  you  see  in  him. 
So  that  the  release  from  the  slavery  of  superficial 
imitation  must  come  not  by  a  supercilious  contempt, 
but  by  a  profounder  reverence  for  men  stronger  and 
more  successful  than  yourself. 

With  regard  to  the  vexed  question  of  written  or 
unwritten  sermons  I  have  not  very  mnch  to  say.     I 


I'iO  LECTURES   ON  PREACIUNi!. 

think  it  is  a  question  wliose  importance  has  been 
very  much  exaggerated,  and  the  attempt  to  settle 
which  with  some  invariable  rule  has  been  unwise, 
ani  probably  has  made  stumbling  speakers  out  of 
Bome  men  who  might  have  been  effective  readers,  or 
stupid  readers  out  of  men  who  might  have  spoken 
with  force  and  fire.  The  different  methods  have  their 
evident  different  advantages.  In  the  written  sermon 
tlie  best  part  of  the  care  is  put  in  where  it  belongs, 
in  the  thought  and  construction  of  the  discourse. 
There  is  deliberateness.  There  is  the  assurance  of 
industry  and  the  man's  best  work.  The  truth  comes 
to  the  people  with  the  weight  that  it  gets  from  being 
evidently  the  preacher's  serious  conviction.  There  is 
self-restraint.  There  is  some  exemption  from  those 
foolish  fluent  things  tliat  slip  so  easily  off  of  the  ready 
tongue.  The  writer  is  spared  some  of  those  de- 
spairing moments  which  come  to  the  extemporaneous 
speaker  when  a  wretched  piece  of  folly  escapes  him 
which  he  would  give  anything  to  recall  but  cannot, 
and  he  sees  the  raven-like  reporters  catch  the  silly 
morsel  as  it  drops.  Whatever  may  be  said  about  the 
duty  of  labor  upon  extemporaneous  discourses,  the 
advantage  in  point  of  faithfulness  will  no  doubt  al- 
ways be  with  the  written  sermon.  King  Charles  the 
Second  used  to  call  the  practice  of  preaching  from 
manuscript  which  had  arisen  during  the  civil  wars, 
*  this  slothful  way  of  preaching,"   but  he  was  com 


THE  MAKING    OF   THE   SERMON.  171 

paring  it  probably  with  the  method  of  preaching  by 
memory,  the  whole  sermon  being  first  written  and 
tiien  learnt  by  heart,  —  a  method  which  some  men 
practice,  but  'which  I  hope  nobody  commends.  0\i 
the  other  hand,  the  extemporaneous  discourse  has  the  ^ 
advantage  of  alertness.  It  gives  a  sense  of  liveliness. 
It  is  more  immediately  striking.  It  possesses  more, 
activity  and  warmth.-  It  conveys  an  idea  of  steadi- 
ness and  readiness,  of  poise  and  self-possession,  even 
to  the  most  rude  perceptions.  Men  have  an  admira- 
tion for  it,  as  indicating  a  mastery  of  powers  and  an 
independence  of  artificial  helps.  A  rough  backwoods- 
man in  Virginia  heard  Bishop  Meade  preach  an  ex- 
temporaneous sermon,  and,  being  somewhat  unfamil- 
iar with  the  ways  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  he  said 
"  He  liked  him.  He  was  the  first  one  he  ever  saw  of 
those  petticoat  fellows  that  could  shoot  without  a 
rest." 

It  is  easy  thus  to  characterize  the  two  methods  ^ 
but,  when  ■  our  characterizations  are  complete,  what 
shall  we  say  ?  Only  two  things,  I  think,  and  those 
so  simple  and  so  commonplace  that  it  is  strange  that 
they  should  need  to  be  said,  but  certainl}^  they  do. 
The  first  is,  that  two  such  different  methods  must  be- 
long in  general  to  two  different  kinds  of  men  ;■  that 
Bome  men  are  made  for  manuscripts,  and  some  for  the  • 
vpen  platform  ;  that  to  exclude  either  class  from  the 
iiinistry,  or  to  compel  either  class  to  use  the  methods 


172      LECTURES   ON  PREACHING.^ 

of  the  other,  would  rob  the  pulpit  by  silencing  some 
of  its  best  men.  The  other  remark  is  that  almost 
every  man,  in  some  proportion,  may  use  both  meth- 
ods ;  that  they  help  each  other ;  that  you  will  write 
better  if  you  often  speak  without  your  notes,  and  you 
will  speak  better  if  you  often  give  yourself  the  disci- 
pline of  writing.  Add  to  these  merely  that  tlie  pro- 
portion of  extemporaneous  preaching  may  well  be  in- 
creased as  a  man  grows  older  in  the  ministry,  and  I 
do  not  know  what  more  to  say  in  the  way  of  general 
suggestion.  The  rest  must  be  left  to  a  man's  uwn 
knowledge  of  himself  and  that  personal  good  sense 
which  lies  behind  all  homileties. 

But  there  is  one  thing  which  I  want  very  much  to 
urge  upon  you.  The  real  question  about  a  sermon  is, 
not  whether  it  is  extemporaneous  when  you  deliver 
it  to  your  people,  but  whether  it  ever  was  extem- 
poraneous, —  whether  there  ever  was  a  time  when 
the  discourse  sprang  freshly  from  your  heart  and 
mind.  The  main  difference  in  sermons  is  that  some 
sermons  are,  and  other  sermons  are  not,  conscious  of 
an  audience.  The  main  question  about  sermons  is, 
whether  they  feel  their  hearers.  If  they  do,  they  are 
entluisiastic,  personal,  and  warm.  If  they  do  not, 
they  are  calm,  abstract,  and  cold.  Hut  that  con- 
sciousness of  an  audience  is  something  that  may  come 
into  the  preacher's  study ;  and  if  it  does,  his  sermon 
springs  with  the  same  personalness  and  fervor  there 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE  SERMON.  173 

\;vbicli  it  would  get  if  he  made  it  in  the  pulpit  with 
the  multitude  before  him.  I  think  that  every  earnest 
preacher  is  often  more  excited  as  he  writes,  kindles 
more  th(in  with  the  glow  of  sending  truth  to  men 
than  he  ever  does  in  speaking  ;  and  the  wonderful 
thing  is,  that  that  fire,  if  it  is  really  present  in  the 
sermon  when  it  is  written,  stays  there,  and  breaks 
out  into  flame  again  when  the  delivery  of  the  sermon 
comes.  The  enthusiasm  is  stowed  away  and  ke]3t. 
It  is  like  the  fire  that  was  packed  away  in  the  coal- 
beds  ages  ago  and  comes  out  now  to  give  us  its  un- 
decayed  and  unwasted  light.  As  you  preach  old  ser- 
mons, I  think  you  can  always  tell,  even  if  the  history 
of  them  is  forgotten,  which  of  them  you  wrote  enthu- 
siastically, with  your  people  vividly  before  you.  The 
fire  is  in  them  still.  F^nelon  had  a  favorite  maxiim 
that  anything  which  was  truly  written  with  enthu- 
siasm could  be  quickly  learned  even  by  some  one  else 
than  its  author.  It  is  the  same  idea  :  that  which 
once  has  true  life  in  it  never  dies.  Believe  me,  this 
is  the  most  important  principle  about  the  matter.  It 
differs,  no  doubt,  in  diffei*ent  subjects.  Some  kinds 
of  discourses  we  can  never  write.  They  must  be 
made  as  we  deliver  them.  Others  we  may  bettej* 
write,  if  we  can  write  with  the  people  there  before 
us.  Some  medicines  you  must  mix  on  the  spot  ; 
others  you  may  mix  beforehand  and  they  will  keep 
their   power.     Only   be   sure   that   you   are   a   true 


174  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

prea(;lier,  that  j^ou  really  feel  your  people,  and  the 
details  of  method  may  be  settled  by  minute  and 
personal  considerations,  —  by  your  special  fitness,  in 
some  degree  even  by  your  peculiar  taste.  I  really 
think  that  you  will  be  surprised  to  see  how  often  this 
idea  describes  the  secret  of  some  power  fii  a  sermon 
•whijh  you  have  found  it  hard  to  discover  while  you 
have  felt  it  very  deeply.  The  minister  who  reads 
his  manuscript  had  you  with  him  as  he  wrote  those 
pages.  In  the  calm  air  of  his  study,  sacred  with  the 
thought  and  prayer  of  years,  nothing  came  in  be- 
tween him  and  you  ;  and  so  the  accidents  of  the 
paper  and  the  reading  amount  to  nothing.  The  ser- 
mon still  speaks  to  you.  But  sometimes  to  an  ex- 
temporaneous preacher  his  very  extemporaneousness 
proves  a  dull,  dead  cloud,  which  wraps  itself  around 
him,  and  separates  him  from  the  people  who  are 
crowded  up  close  about  his  feet.  The  struggles  of 
thought  are  on  him.  He  is  busy  with  the  choice  of 
words.  His  mind  is  watching  its  own  action  as  it 
seizes  on  thought  after  thought.  There  is  a  process 
of  memory  and  a  process  of  anticipation  going  on  all 
the  time  which  prevent  his  perfect  occupation  in  the 
present  act.  He  is  forced  to  recollect  liimself,  and  so 
he  does  not  feel  the  people.  This,  I  am  sure,  is  a 
true  account  of  what  is  no  unusual  condition  of  the 
extemporaneous  preacher's  mind.  I  think  that  the 
uest  sermons  that  ever  have  been  preached,  taking 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  UB 

all  the  qualities  of  sermons  into  account,  haw  /'rob- 
ably  been  extemporaneous  sermons,  but  that  the  num- 
ber of  good  sermons  preached  from  manuscript  have 
probably  been  far  greater  than  the  number  of  good 
sermons  preached  extemporaneously  ;  and  he  who 
can  put  those  two  facts  together  will  arrive  at  some 
pretty  clear  and  just  idea  of  how  it  will  be  best  for 
him  to  preach. 

Let  me  offer  only  a  few  suggestions  upon  one  or 
two  other  points,  and  first,  with  regard  to  illustra- 
tions. The  Christian  sermon  deals  with  all  life,  and 
may  draw  its  illustrations  from  the  widest  range. 
The  first  necessity  of  illustration  is  that  it  should  be 
true,  that  is,  that  it  should  have  real  relations  to  the 
subject  which  it  illustrates.  An  illustration  is  prop- 
erly used  in  preaching  either  to  give  clearness  or  to 
give  splendor  to  the  utterance  of  truth.  Both  ob- 
jects, I  believe,  are  legitimate.  Ruskin  says  that 
"  All  noble  ornament  is  the  expression  of  man's  de- 
light in  God's  work."  And  so  I  think  that  we  con- 
fine too  much  the  office  of  illustration  if  we  give  it 
only  the  duty  of  making  truth  clear  to  the  under- 
standing, and  do  not  also  allow  it  the  privilege  of 
making  truth  glorious  to  the  imagination.  Arch- 
bishop Whately's  illustrations  are  of  the  first  sort, 
Jeremy  Tajdor's  of  the  second.  The  ornament  that 
fills  his  sermons  is  almost  alwa^'S  the  expression  of 
man's  delight  in  God's  truth.     But  both  sorts  of  illua- 


ITfi  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

tration,  as  you  see,  have  this  characteristic.  Thej 
exist  for  the  truth.  They  are  not  counted  of  value 
for  themselves.  That  is  the  test  of  illustration  which 
you  ought  to  apply  unsparingly.  Does  it  call  atton- 
tion  to  or  call  attention  away  from  my  truth  ?  If  the 
latter,  cut  it  off  without  a  hesitation.  The  prettier 
it  is,  the  "worse  it  is.  Here  as  everywhere  the  love  of 
truth  for  itself  is  the  only  salvation.  Love  the  truth, 
and  then,  for  your  people's  good  and  for  your  own 
delight,  make  it  as  beautiful  as  you  can. 

As  to  the  subjects  from  which  illustrations  may  be 
drawn,  I  cannot  but  think  that  it  would  be  well  if  we 
made  a  much  greater  use  of  the  history  of  the  Old 
Testament  to  illustrate  the  Gospel  of  the  New.  And 
for  these  reasons:  first,  that  the  two  have  an  essential 
connection  with  each  other  and  so  they  come  together 
with  peculiar  sympathy  and  fitness  ;  second,  that  the 
very  antiquity  of  that  history  makes  it  timeless  and 
passionless,  as  it  were,  and  so  enables  us  to  use  it 
purely  as  ornament  or  illustration,  without  the  danger 
of  its  introducing  side  issues  from  its  own  life ;  and 
thirdly,  we  should  thus  revive  and  preserve  people's 
acquaintance  with  tlie  Old  Testament  which  is  al- 
ways falling  into  decay.  The  second  of  these  reasons 
shows  where  the  weak  spot  is  in  the  illustration 
drawn  from  the  events  of  the  current  hour,  which  is 
otherwise  so  strong  and  vivid.  It  is  difficult  to  make 
it  serve  purely  as  an    illustration.      It   brings  in  it» 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  Ill 

own  aBSOciations  and  prejudices.  It  is  too  alive.  It 
is  as  if  you  made  the  cornice  of  your  house  out  of 
wood  with  so  much  life  in  it  that  it  sprouted  after  it 
was  up,  and  hid  with  its  foliage  the  architecture  which 
it  was  intended  only  to  display.  It  was  hard  during 
the  rebellion  to  illustrate  the  Christian  warfare  by 
the  then  familiar  story  of  the  soldier's  life  without 
hearing  through  the  sermon  the  drums  of  the  Poto- 
mac, and  seeing  the  spires  of  Richmond  quite  as  much 
as  the  walls  of  the  New  Jerusalem  in  the  distance. 
Besides  this,  an  over  eagerness  to  catch  the  last  sen- 
sation to  decorate  your  sermon  with,  gives  a  certain 
cheapness  to  your  pulpit  work.  With  cautions  such 
as  these  in  mind,  we  cannot  still  afford  to  lose  the 
freshness  and  reality  which  comes  from  letting  men 
Bee  the  eternal  truths  shining  through  the  familiar 
windows  of  to-day,  and  making  them  understand  that 
the  world  is  as  full  of  parables  as  it  was  when  Jesus 
painted  the  picture  of  the  vineyard  between  Jerusa- 
lem and  Shechera,  or  took  his  text  from  the  recent 
terrible  accident  at  Siloam. 

One  prevalent  impression  about  sermons,  which 
prevails  now  in  reaction  from  an  old  and  disagreeable 
method,  is,  I  think,  mistaken.  In  the  desire  to  make 
a  sermon  seem  free  and  spontaneous  there  is  a  prev- 
alent dislike  to  giving  it  its  necessary  formal  struct- 
ure and  organism.  The  statement  of  the  subject, 
Vhe  division  into  heads,  the  recapitulation  at  the  end, 
la 


178  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

all  the  scaffolding  and  anatomy  of  a  sermon  is  out  oi 
favor,  and  there  are  many  very  good  jests  about  it. 
I  can  c>nly  say  that  I  have  come  to  fear  it  less  and 
less.  The  escape  from  it  must  be  not  negative  but 
positive.  The  true  way  to  get  rid  of  the  bonynesa 
of  yt>ur  sermon  is  not  by  leaving  out  the  skeleton, 
but  by  clothing  it  with  flesh.  True  liberty  in  writ- 
ing comes  b}-  law,  and  tlie  more  thoroughly  the  out- 
lines of  your  work  are  laid  out  the  more  freely  your 
sermon  will  flow,  like  an  unwasted  stream  between  its 
well-built  banks.  I  think  that  most  congregations 
welcome,  and  are  not  offended  by  clear,  precise  state- 
raents  of  the  course  which  a  sermon  is  going  to  pur- 
sue, carefully  marked  division  of  its  thoughts,  and, 
above  all,  full  recapitulation  of  its  argument  at  the 
close.  A  sermon  is  not  like  a  picture  which,  once 
painted,  stands  altogether  before  the  eye.  Its  parts 
elude  the  memor}',  and  it  is  good  before  you  close  to  ' 
gather  all  the  parts  together,  and  as  briefly  as  you 
can,  set  them  as  one  completed  whole  before  your 
hearer's  mind.  Leave  to  the  ordinary  Sunday-school 
address  its  unquestioned  privilege  of  inconsequence 
and  incoherence.  But  give  your  sermon  an  orderly 
.consistent  progress,  and  do  not  hesitate  to  let  your 
hearers  see  it  distinctly,  for  it  will  help  them  first  to 
understand  and  then  to  remember  what  you  say. 

Of  oratory,  and  all  the  marvellous  mysterious  ways 
rf  those  who  teach  it,  I  dare  say  nothing.     I  believe 


THE  MAKING   OF   THE   SERMON.  179 

in  the  true  elocution  teacher,  as  I  believe  in  the  exist- 
ence of  Halley's  comet,  which  comes  into  sight  of  this 
earth  once  in  about  seventy-six  years.  But  whatever 
you  may  learn  or  unlearn  from  him  to  your  advan- 
trige,  the  real  power  of  your  oratory  must  be  your 
own  intelligent  delight  in  what  you  are  doing.  Let 
your  pulpit  be  to  you  what  his  studio  is  to  the  artist, 
or  his  court  room  to  the  lawyer,  or  his  laboratory  to 
the  chemist,  or  the  broad  field  with  its  bugles  and 
banners  to  the  soldier,  only  far  more  sacredly  let  j^our 
pulpit  be  this  to  you,  and  you  have  the  power  which 
is  to  all  rules  what  the  soul  is  to  the  body.  You  have 
enthusiasm  which  is  the  bi'eath  of  life. 

I  have  spoken  to-day  about  the  making  of  a  ser- 
mon. I  alluded  at  the  beginning  of  one  lecture  to  a 
young  man  whom  I  saw  just  entering  on  his  work. 
To-day  I  have  been  thinking  of  one  whom  I  knew  — 
nay,  one  whom  I  know  —  who  finished  his  preaching 
years  ago  and  went  to  God.  How  does  all  this  seem 
to  him  ?  —  these  rules  and  regulations  of  the  preach- 
er's art,  which  he  once  studied  as  we  are  studying 
them  now.  Let  us  not  doubt,  my  friends,  that  while 
he  has  seen  a  glory  and  strength  in  the  truth  which 
we  preach,  such  as  we  never  have  conceived,  he  has 
9een  also  that  no  expedient  which  can  make  that 
truth  a  little  more  effective  in  its  presentation  to  'he 
world  is  trivial,  or  undignified,  or  unworthy  of  rhe 
Datient  care  and  study  of  the  minister  of  Christ. 


/- 


THE  CONGREGATION. 


T  IlA  VE  4iid  wliat  I  had  to  say  about  the  preachel 
■^  and  abo-ut  the  sermon.  To-day  I  want  to  speak  to 
you  about  the  congregation.  There  is  something  re- 
markable in  the  way  in  whicli  a  minister  talks  about 
"  ray  congregation."  They  evidently  come  to  seem  to 
him  different  from  the  rest  of  humankind.  There  is 
the  rest  of  our  race,  in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and 
America,  and  the  Islands  of  the  Sea,  and  then  there 
is  "  my  congregation."  A  man  begins  the  habit  the 
moment  he  is  settled  in  a  parish.  However  young, 
however  inexperienced  he  may  be,  he  at  once  takes 
possession  of  that  fraction  of  the  human  family  and 
holds  it  with  a  sense  of  ownership.  He  immediately 
assumes  certain  fictions  concerning  them.  He  takes 
it  for  granted  that  they  listen  to  his  words  Avith  a 
deference  quite  irrespective  of  the  value  of  the  words 
themselves.  He  talks  majestically  about  "  what  I 
tell  my  congregation "  as  if  there  were  some  basis 
upon  which  they  received  his  teachings  quite  different 
from  that  upon  which  other  intelligent  men  listen  to 
■>ne  who  takes  his  place  before  them  as  their  teacher. 


THE   CONGREGATION.  181 

He  supposes  them  to  be  subject  to  emotions  which  he 
expects  of  no  one  else.  He  thinks  that,  in  some  mys- 
terious way,  their  property  as  well  as  their  intelligence 
is  subject  to  his  demand,  to  be  handed  over  to  hira 
when  he  shall  tell  them  that  he  has  found  a  good  use 
to  which  to  put  it.  He  imagines  that,  though  they 
are  as  clear-sighted  as  other  people,  little  devices  of 
his  which  are  perfectly  plain  to  eveiybody  else  impose 
upon  them  perfectly.  He  talks  about  them  so  un- 
naturally that  we  are  almost  surprised  when  we  ask 
their  names  and  find  that  they  are  men  and  women 
whom  we  know,  men  and  women  who  are  living  ordi- 
nary lives  and  judging  people  and  things  by  ordinary 
standards,  with  all  the  varieties'  of  character  and 
ways  which  any  such  group  must  have,  whom  he  has 
separated  from  the  rest  of  humanity  and  distinguished 
by  their  relation  to  himself  and  calls  "  my  congre- 
gation." 

I  think  that  a  good  deal  of  the  unreality  of  clerical 
life  comes  from  this  feeling  of  ministers  about  their 
congregations.  I  have  known  many  ministers  who 
were  frank  and  simple  and  unreserved  with  other 
people  for  whom  they  did  not  feel  a  responsibility, 
but  who  threw  around  themselves  a  cloak  of  fictions 
and  reserves  the  moment  that  they  met  a  parishioner. 
They  were  willing  to  let  the  sti'anger  clearly  see  that 
there  were  many  things  in  religion  and  theology 
<v^hich  they  did  not  know  at  all,  many  other  questions 


182  LECTURES   OX  PREACHING. 

ou  vvliich  tliey  were  in  doubt,  points  of  their  church's 
faith  which  they  thought  unimportant  to  salvation, 
methods  of  tlieir  church's  policy  wliicli  tlioy  thought 
injudicious.  All  this  they  would  say  freely  as  they 
talked  ^vith  the  wolf  over  the  sheepfold  wall,  or  with 
some  sheep  in  the  next  flock ;  but  in  their  own  flock 
they  held  their  peace,  or  said  that  everything  was 
riglit,  and  never  dreamed  that  their  flock  saw  through 
their  feeble  cautiousness.  The  result  of  all  this  has 
sometimes  been  that  parishioners  have  trusted  other 
men  more  than  their  minister  just  because  he  was 
their  minister,  and  have  gone  with,  their  troublesome 
questions  and  dark  experiences  to  some  one  who 
should  speak  of  them  freely  because  he  should  not 
feel  that  he  was  speaking  to  a  member  of  his  congre- 
gation. 

It  is  easy  to  point  out  what  are  the  causes  of  this 
feeling  whicli  we  thus  see  has  its  dangers.  The  bad 
part  in  it  is  a  love  of  power.  The  better  part  is  an 
anxious  sense  of  responsibility,  made  more  anxious 
by  the  true  affection  which  grows  up  in  the  preacher's 
heart.  It  is  almost  a  parental  feeling  in  its  worse  as 
in  its  better  features,  in  its  partialness  and  jealousy 
as  well  as  in  its  devotion  and  love.  But  besides  these 
there  is  another  element  in  the  view  which  the 
preacher  takes  of  his  congregation  which  I  beg  you 
to  observe  and  think  about.  It  is  the  way  in  which 
be  assumes  a  difference  in    the   charact'^r  of    people 


THE   CONGREGATION.  183 

^he;i  they  are  massed  together  from  any  which  they 
had  when  they  were  looked  at  separately.  This  la 
the  real  meaning  of  the  tone  which  is  in  that  phrase 
"  my  congregation."  It  is  to  the  minister  a  unit  of 
a  wholly  novel  sort.  There  is  something  in  the  con- 
gregation which  is  not  in  the  men  and  women  as  he 
knows  them  in  their  separate  humanities,  something 
in  the  aggregate  which  was  not  in  the  individuals,  a 
character  in  the  whole  which  was  not  in  the  parts. 
This  is  the  reason  why  he  can  group  them  in  his 
thought  as  a  peculiar  people,  hold,  them  in  his  hand 
as  a  new  human  unity,  his  congregation. 

And  no  doubt  he  is  partly  right.  There  is  a  prin- 
ciple underneath  the  feeling  by  which  he  vaguely 
works.  A  multitude  of  people  gathered  for  a  special 
purpose  and  absorbed  for  the  time  into  a  common  in- 
terest has  a  new  character  which  is  not  in  any  of  the 
individuals  which  compose  it.  If  you  are  a  speaker 
addressing  a  crowd  you  feel  that.  You  say  things  to 
them  without  hesitation  that  would  seem  either  too 
bold  or  too  simple  to  say  to  any  man  among  them  if 
you  talked  with  him  face  to  face.  If  you  are  a  spec- 
tator and  watch  a  crowd  while  some  one  else  is  speak- 
ing to  it,  you  can  feel  the  same  thing.  You  can  see 
emotions  run  through  the  mass  that  no  one  man  there 
would  have  deigned  to  show  or  submitted  to  feel  if 
he  could  have  helped  it.  The  crowd  will  laugh  at 
pkes  which  every  man  in  the  crowd  would  have  de- 


184  LECTURES   ON  P REACHING. 

Bpised,  and  be  melted  by  mawkish  pathos  thai  would 
not  have  extorted  a  tear  from  the  weakest  of  them  by 
himself.  Imagine  Peter  the  Hermit  sitting  down 
alone  with  a  man  to  fire  him  up  for  a  crusade.  Prob- 
ably all  this  is  less  true  of  one  of  our  New  England 
audiences  than  of  any  other  that  is  ever  collected  in 
-our  land.  In  it  every  man  keeps  guard  over  his  indi- 
viduality and  does  not  easily  let  it  sink  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  multitude.  And  yet  we  are  men  and 
women  even  here,  and  the  universal  laws  of  human 
nature  do  work  even  among  us.  And  this  is  a  law  of 
nature  which  all  men  have  observed.  "  It  is  a  strange 
thing  to  say,"  says  Arthur  Helps  in  "  Realmah,"  "but 
when  the  number  of  any  public  body  exceeds  that  of 
forty  or  fifty,  the  whole  assembly  has  an  element  of 
joyous  childhood  in  it,  and  each  member  revives  at 
times  the  glad,  mischievous  nature  of  his  school-boy 
days."  Canning  used  to  say  that  the  House  of  Com- 
mons as  a  body  had  better  taste  than  the  man  of  the 
best  taste  in  it,  and  Macaulay  was  much  inclined  to 
think  that  Canning  was  right. 

What  are  the  elements  of  this  new  character  which 
belongs  to  a  congregation,  a  company  of  men  ?  Twc 
of  them  have  been  suggested  in  the  two  instances 
which  I  have  just  quoted,  —  the  spontaneousncss  and 
liberty,  and  the  higher  standard  of  thought  and  taste. 
[t  is  not  hard  to  see  what  some  of  the  other  elements 
fcre.    There  is  no  doubt  greater  receptivity  than  there 


THE   CONGREGATION.  185 

is  in  the  individual.  Many  of  the  sources  of  antago- 
nism are  removed.  The  tendency  to  irritation  is  put 
to  rest.  The  pride  of  argument  is  not  there  ;  or  is 
modified  by  the  fact  that  no  other  man  can  hear  tho 
argument,  because  it  cannot  speak  a  word,  but  must 
go  on  in  a  man's  own  silent  soul.  It  is  easier  to  give 
way  when  you  sit  undistinguished  in  an  audience, 
and  your  next  neighbor  cannot  see  the  moment  when 
you  yield.  The  surrender  loses  half  its  hardness 
when  you  have  no  sword  to  surrender  and  no  flag  to 
run  down.  And,  besides  this,  we  have  all  felt  how 
the  silent  multitude,  in  the  midst  of  which  we  sit  or 
stand,  becomes  ideal  and  heroic  to  us.  We  feel  as  if 
it  were  listening  without  prejudice,  and  responding 
unselfishly  and  nobly.  So  we  are  lifted  up  to  our 
best  by  the  buoyancy  of  the  mass  in  which  we  have 
been  merged.  It  may  be  a  delusion.  Each  of  these 
silent  men  may  be  thinking  and  feeling  meanly,  but 
probably  each  of  them  has  felt  the  elevation  of  the 
mass  about  him  of  which  we  are  one  particle,  and  so 
is  lifting  and  lifted  just  as  we  are.  Who  can  say 
which  drops  in  the  great  sweep  of  the  tide  are  borne ^ 
and  which  bear  others  toward  the  shore,  on  which 
they  all  rise  together  ? 

This,  then,  is  the  good  quality  in  the  character  of 
the  congregation.  It  produces  what  in  general  we 
call  responsiveness.  The  compensating  quality  which 
takes  away  part  of  the  value  of  this  one  is  its  irre« 


186  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

uponsibility.  The  audience  is  quick  to  feel,  but  slov* 
to  decide.  The  men  who  make  up  the  audience, 
taken  one  by  one,  are  slower  to  feel  an  argument  or 
an  appeal  to  their  higher  nature,  but  when  they  are 
convinced  or  touched,  it  is  comparatively  easy  to 
waken  the  conscience,  and  make  them  see  the  neces- 
sity of  action,  I  liave  often  heard  the  minister's  ap- 
peals compared  to  the  lawyer's  addresses  to  the  jury. 
"  Look,"  men  say,  "  the  lawyer  pleads,  and  gets  hia 
verdict."  "  You  plead  a  hundred  times.  You  argue 
week  after  week,  and  men  will  not  decide  that  Chris- 
tianity is  true,  nor  steadfastly  resolve  to  lead  a  new 
life."  The  fallacy  is  obvious.  We  are  like  lawyers 
pleading  before  a  jury,  which  in  the  first  place  feels 
itself  under  no  compulsion  to  decide  at  all ;  and  in 
the  second  place,  if  it  decides  as  we  are  urging  it, 
must  change  its  life,  break  off  its  habits,  and  make 
new  ones,  which  it  does  not  like  to  contemplate. 
There  is  no  likeness  between  it  and  that  body  of 
twelve  men,  who  cannot  go  home  till  they  decide  one 
way  or  the  other,  and  who  have  no  selfish  interest  to 
bias  their  decision.  No  wonder  that  our  jury  listens 
to  us  as  long  as  it  pleases,  perhaps  trembles  a  little 
when  we  are  most  true  and  powerful,  and  then,  like 
Felix,  who  was  both  judge  aiid  jury  to  St.  Paul, 
shuts  up  the  court,  and  departs  with  only  the  dim- 
mest feeling  of  responsibility,  saying,  "  Go  thy  waj 
tor  this  time.     I  will  hear  thee  again  of  this  matter.' 


THE    CONGREGATION.  187 

The  result  of  all  this  is  that  in  the  congregation 
you  have  something  very  near  the  general  huraanit}'. 
You  have  human  nature  as  it  appears  in  its  largest 
contemplation.  Personal  peculiarities  have  disap- 
peared and  man  simply  as  man  is  before  you.  This  is 
a  great  advantage  to  the  preacher.  "  It  is  more  easy 
to  know  man  in  general  than  to  know  a  man  in  par- 
ticular," said  La  Rochefoucauld.  If  in  the  crowd  to 
whom  you  preach  you  saw  every  man  not  merely  in 
general  but  in  particular,  if  each  sat  there  with  his 
idiosyncrasies  bristling  all  over  him,  how  could  you 
preach  ?  There  are  some  preachers,  I  think,  who 
are  ineffective  from  a  certain  incapacity  of  this  larger 
general  sight  of  humanity  which  a  congregation  ought 
to  inspire.  It  has  been  said  of  the  French  preachers 
that  Bossuet  knew  man  better  than  men,  but  Fdnelon 
knew  both  man  and  men.  There  are  some  preach- 
ers who  seem  to  know  men  but  hardly  to  know  or  to 
be  touched  by  man  at  all.  They  are  ready  with 
special  sympathies  and  with  minute  advice  in  the 
dilemmas  of  detail  which  men  encounter  ;  but  the 
sight  of  their  race  does  not  rouse  them,  and  they  are 
not  able  to  bring  to  bear  upon  a  people  those  univer- 
sal and  eternal  motives  of  the  highest  human  action, 
which,  however  they  may  distribute  themselves  into 
special  motives  for  special  acts,  still  have  a  real  unity 
and  are  the  springs  of  many  goodnesses  of  many 
kinds.     Such  men  may  have  a  certain  fitness  to  be 


188  LECTUliES   ON  PRE  ACHING. 

tne  spiritual  advisers  of  individuals,  but  it  is  not 
easy  to  see  how  they  can  be  powerful  preachers  to 
mankind. 

I  think  that  it  is  almost  necessary  for  a  man  to 
preach  sometimes  to  congregations  which  he  does  not 
know,  in  order  to  keep  this  impression  of  preaching 
to  humanity,  and  so  to  keep  the  truth  which  ho 
preaches  as  large  as  it  ought  to  be.  He  who  minis- 
ters to  the  same  people  always,  knowing  them  mi- 
nutely, is  apt  to  let  his  preaching  grow  minute,  to  for- 
get the  world,  and  to  make  the  same  mistakes  about 
the  Gospel  that  one  Avould  make  about  the  force  of 
gravitation  if  he  came  to  consider  it  a  special  arrange- 
ment made  for  these  few  operations  which  it  accom- 
plishes within  his  own  house.  I  think  there  are  few 
inspirations,  few  tonics  for  a  minister's  life  better  than, 
when  he  is  fretted  and  disheartened  with  a  liundred 
little  worries,  to  go  and  pi'each  to  a  congregation  in 
which  he  does  not  know  a  face.  As  he  stands  u]) 
and  looks  across  them  before  he  begins  his  sermon, 
it  is  like  looking  the  race  in  the  face.  All  the  noble- 
ness and  responsibility  of  liis  vocation  comes  to  him. 
It  is  the  feeling  which  one;  has  had  sometimes  in 
travelling  when  he  has  passed  through  a  great  town 
whose  nnme  he  did  not  even  learn.  There  were  men, 
but  not  one  man  he  knew  ;  houses,  shops,  churches, 
bank,  post-office,  business  and  pleasure,  but  none  of 
them  Jndividiuili/A'd  to  him  l)y  any  persona)   interest. 


THE   CONGREGATION.  189 

It  is  human  life  in  general,  and  often  has  a  solemnity 
for  him  which  the  human  lives  whicli  he  knows  in 
particular  have  lost.  And  this  is  what  we  often  find 
in  some  strange  pulpit  facing  some  congregation 
wholly  made  up  of  strangers. 

But  this  should  be  occasional.  A  constant  travel- 
ling among  unknown  towns  would  no  doubt  weaken 
and  perhaps  destroy  our  sense  of  humanity  alto- 
gether. Tliere  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  is  good  for  a 
man  that  his  knowledge  of  a  congregation  should  be 
primarily  and  principally  the  knowledge  of  his  own 
congregation,  certain  dangers  of  a  too  exclusive  re- 
lationship being  obviated  by  preaching  sometimes 
where  the  people  are  all  strange.  It  is  remarkable 
how  many  of  the  great  preachers  of  the  world  are 
inseparably  associated  with  the  places  where  their 
work  was  done,  where  perhaps  all-  their  life  was 
lived.  In  many  cases  their  place  lias  passed  into 
their  name  as  if  it  were  a  true  part  of  themselves. 
Chrysostom  of  Constantinople,  Augustine  of  Hippo, 
Savonarola  of  Florence,  Baxter  of  Kidderminster,  Ar- 
nold of  Rugby,  Robertson  of  Brighton,  Chalmers  of 
Glasgow,  and  in  our  New  England  a  multitude  of 
Buch  associations  which  have  become  historic  and 
compel  us  always  to  think  of  the  man  with  the  place 
and  of  the  place  with  the  man.  Everywhere  a  man 
must  have  his  place.  The  disciples  are  sometimes 
»et  before  us  as  if  our  pastoral  life  of  modern  times 


190  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

were  an  entire  departure  from  their  methods ;  and 
yet  they  had  their  j^astorates.  Think  of  St.  Paul  at 
Ephesus.  Think  of  St.  John  in  the  same  city.  Think 
of  St.  James  at  Jerusalem.  The  same  necessity,  may 
we  not  say,  which  required  tiiat  the  Incarnation 
should  bring  divinity,  not  into  humanity  in  general, 
but  into  some  special  human  circle,  into  a  nation,  a 
tribe,  a  family,  requires  that  he  who  would  bear  fruit 
everywhere  for  humanity  should  root  himself  into 
some  special  plot  of  human  life  and  draw  out  the 
richness  of  the  earth  by  which  he  is  to  live  at  some 
one  special  point.  There  is  nothing  better  in  a  cler- 
gyman's life  than  to  feel  constantly _that^hroughh]8 
congregation  he  is  getting  at  his  race.  Certainly  the 
long  pastorates  of  other  days  were  rich  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature,  in  a  very  intimate  relation 
with  humanity.  These  three  rules  seem  to  have  in 
tliem  the  practical  sum  of  the  whole  matter.  I  beg 
you  to  remember  them  and  apply  them  with  all  the 
wisdom  that  God  gives  you.  First.  Have  as  few  con- 
gregations as  you  can.  Second.  Know  your  congre- 
gation as  thoroughly  as  you  can.  Third.  Know  your 
congregation  so  largfely  and  deeply  that  in  knowing 
It  you  shall  know  humanity. 

I  have  lingered  too  long  upon  the  congregation  as 
a  whole.     Let  me  go  on  to  speak  of  that  which  ap 
pears  to  every  minister  as  he  takes  a  certain  congre- 
gation  to   be   his   congregation    and   comes  to   kno^v 


rilE   CONGREGATION.  191 

them  very  well.  Then  the  unity  in  which  he  saw 
them  the  first  time  he  stood  before  them  breaks  up, 
and  they  are  divided  into  various  classes.  Between 
that  one  great  gathering  which  fills  the  house  and 
the  individuals  of  whom  it  is  composed,  there  are 
divisions  into  various  ^groups,  which  with  certain 
modifications  here  and  there,  appear  in  every  congre- 
gation in  the  land.     Let  us  see  what  they  are. 

First  and  most  prominent  in  every  congregation 
there  are  some  persons  who  peculiarly  represent  it  to 
the  world.  They  live  in  the  Church,  as  it  were. 
Their  whole  life  is  bound  up  in  its  interests.  They 
may  be  church  officers  or  not.  They  are  part  of  its 
history  and  of  its  present  life.  The  congregation 
goes  by  their  name  almost  as  readily  as,  in  your  Con- 
gregational fashion,  by  the  minister's.  They  are  the 
persons  to  whom  every  new  enterprise  in  church  life 
looks  first  for  approval  and  then  for  the  means  of  its 
execution.  They  are  what  are  sometimes  called  the 
'■'  pillars  of  the  Church."  And  such  people  are  very 
valuable.  Often  their  lives  are  very  noble  and  de- 
voted. There  are  people  so  prominently  representa- 
tive of  churches,  whose  life  is  as  truly  a  consecrated 
life,  with  an  ordination  of  its  own,  as  any  minister's. 
They  give  a  solidity  and  permanence  to  the  con- 
gregation, preserve  its  continuity  and  identity  in 
the  midst  of  the  continual  changes  of  these  parts  of 
"t  which   are   less   firmly  fixed.     They  gather  their 


192  LECTURES   ON  PUEACIIING. 

strength  about  the  minister.  They  save  liiin  from 
falling  into  that  heresy  which  has  beset  all  Christian 
history  and  been  the  fruitful  source  of  many  kinds 
of  woes,  the  heres}^  that  the  clergyman  is  the  Church. 
They  constantly  remind  him  that  the  people  are  the 
Church,  and  that  he  is  the  Church's  servant.  I  rec- 
ognize the  value  of  this  element  in  the  congregation 
very  heartily.  I  think  that  every  parish  needs  such 
laymen.  It  would  be  a  very  loose  and  incoherent 
thing  without  them.  But  still  I  want  you  to  notice 
the  dangers  that  may  come  in  connection  with  the 
special  prominence  and  special  usefulness  of  a  few 
members  of  the  Church.  There  is  chance  always  of 
the  Church  becoming  a  sort  of  club,  providing  for 
the  wants,  perhaps  indeed  the  highest  spiritual 
wants,  of  a  few,  but  forgetting  that  it  has  the  world 
about  it  and  was  meant  for  all  men.  This  is  a  danger 
which  belongs  to  the  very  fact  of  a  recognized  body 
called  the  congregation.  It  is  a  danger  which  is  in- 
tensified when  in  the  centre  of  that  body  there  is  a 
core  which  emphasizes  all  its  qualities  and  spirit,  the 
congregation  of  the  congregation.  The  congregation 
Dught  to  be  exclusive  only,  as  our  old  professor  of 
theology  used  to  say  of  the  Gospel,  as  the  light  in 
the  Pharos  was  covered  with  glass  merely  that  it 
might  burn  the  more  brightly  and  shed  the  more 
light  abroad.  Remember  this  danger.  Give  much 
time  and  thought  and  care  to  the  outskirts  of  your 


THE   CONGREGATION.  193 

parish,  to  its  loose  and  ragged  fringes ;  seek  the  peo- 
ple who  just  drift  within  your  influence,  and  who 
will  drift  awa}^  again,  if  your  kind  strong  hand  is  not 
upon  them.  Do  not  spend  too  much  time  in  the  safe 
sheepfold  where  the  ninety-nine  are  secure,  while 
there  are  sheep  upon  the  mountains.  Be  sure  that 
nothing  will  make  the  core  and  heart  of  your  con- 
gregation so  solid  as  a  strong  drawing  inward  of  its 
loose  circumference.  The  stronsr  and  settled  men  of 
your  church  will  value  you  and  your  usefulness  to 
them  more  highly  if  they  see  you  busy  among  the 
wretched,  the  careless,  and  what  men  dare  to  call  the 
worthless  souls.  And  there  is  another  danger,  I 
think,  which  the  congregation  in  the  congregation 
brings  with  it.  The  laymen  who  are  most  active  and 
interested  in  church  life  are  ver}'-  often  not  the  most 
receptive  hearers.  They  are  apt  to  take  a  few  truths 
for  settled,  and,  realizing  them  very  fully,  using  them 
in  their  church  work  constantly,  to  ask  no  more,  in- 
deed to  be  hardly  open  to  any  more.  They  are  half 
clergyman,  half  layman,  without  the  full  receptivity 
and  mental  enterprise  which  belongs  to  either.  This 
is  the  reason  why  thejr  sometimes  become  dogmatic, 
and  not  merely  do  not  care  themselves  to  speculate 
3r  learn,  but,  with  an  honest  and  narrow  fear,  be- 
grudge the  clergy  and  their  fellow  laymen  an  eager- 
ness for  truth  which  overruns  their  own  settled  lines. 
The  strongest  bigotry  is  often  found  among  theolog- 

13 


194  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

ical  laymen  rather  than  among  clergymen.  Tlie 
pillars  of  the  Church  are  apt  to  be  like  the  Pillars 
of  Hercules,  beyond  which  no  man  might  sail.  Dean 
Stanley,  in  an  essay  upon  the  connection  of  Church 
and  State,  says  .of  the  lay  element  in  Church  Synods : 
*•  The  laymen  who  as  a  general  rule  figure  in  such 
assemblies  do  not  represent  the  true  lay  mind  of  the 
Church,  still  less  the  lay  intelligence  of  the  whole 
country.  They  are  often  excellent  men,  given  to 
good  works,  but  they  are  also  usually  the  partisans  of 
some  special  clerical  school ;  they  are  in  short  clergy- 
men under  another  form  rather  than  the  real  laity 
themselves."  He  is  writing  on  an  English  subject, 
but  his  words  describe  a  danger  which  we  in  America 
can  recognize,  and  which  makes  us  glad  to  go  on  and 
find  in  the  congregation  other  elements  besides  this 
most  valuable,  this  indispensable  one  of  which  I  have 
been  speaking. 

To  pass  at  once,  tiien,  to  the  other  extreme,  there  is 
in  very  numy,  if  not  in  all,  congregations  in  those 
days  what  we  may  call  the  supercilious  hearer.  He 
is  a  man  who  for  some  reason  comes  to  church,  but  is 
out  of  sympathy  with  what  goes  on  there.  He  is  scep- 
tical about  the  truth  of  what  we  believe  and  preach. 
You  come  to  know  that  hearer.  You  are  sure  that  he 
is  critical.  You  are  aware  that  some  safe,  sonorous, 
and  unmeaning  statements,  which  some  of  your  people 
will  take  because  they  have  the  right  words  m  them, 


THE   CONGREGATION.  195 

ind  the  true  ring  about  them,  he  seizes  on  the  mo- 
ment that  they  fall  from  your  lips  and  tears  their 
flimsiness  to  pieces  in  his  merciless  mind.  Sometimes 
your  heart  has  sunk  as  you  have  said  some  foolish 
thing  and  not  dared  to  look  him  in  the  face,  but  felt 
sure  that  it  has  not  escaped  him.  In  one  of  his  Lent 
discourses  Massillon  upbraids  such  hearers.  "  It  is 
not  to  seek  corn,"  he  says,  *'  that  you  come  into 
Egypt.  It  is  to  seek  out  the  nakedness  of  the  land. 
Exploratores  Estis,  ut  videatis  infirmiora  terree  hujus 
venistis."  Now,  such  an  element  in  a  congregation, 
though  it  may  be  very  small,  cannot  but  influence  the 
preacher.  What  shall  he  think  about  it  ?  He  ought 
to  start,  it  seems  to  me,  by  feeling  that  the  very  pres- 
ence of  such  men  in  church  means  something.  They 
have  not  come  wholly,  certainly  they  will  noi  come 
continually,  for  the  malicious  reason  which  Massillon 
ascribes.  There  is  some  better  and  deeper  cause,  even 
though  the  man  is  not  conscious  of  it  himself.  The 
preacher  has  a  right  to  believe  this,  and  so  the  man's 
presence  may  become  not  an  embarrassment  but  an 
inspiration.  And  then,  when  this  is  gained,  he  may 
Decome  a  help  in  other  ways.  He  keeps  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  church  fresh.  He  makes  you  aware  as 
you  preach  of  the  unbelief  which  you  have  no  right 
to  forget.  He  incites  you  with  the  sense  of  diSicuity 
and  the  consciousness  of  criticism.  A  parish  of  critics 
«vould  be  killing,  but  a  critic  here  and  there  is  tonie 


19G  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

He  keejjs  the  walls  of  your  church  from  growing  so 
solid  that  as  you  preach,  you  cannot,  as  you  ought, 
look  through  them  as  if  they  were  glass,  and  preach 
in  the  present  remembrance  of  the  multitudes  whc 
never  come  to  church,  and  do  not  know  your  truth, 
and  yet  for  whom  your  truth  is  just  as  true  and  might 
be  just  as  lielpful  as  it  is  to  you.  This  man  makes 
all  this  real  to  you.  He  compels  you  to  remember  it. 
It  is  strange  how  the  general  scepticism  about  us  may 
not  put  us  out,  or  disturb  us  at  all,  while  a  special 
case  close  by  us  will  excite  us  and  waken  all  our 
powers.  It  is  like  the  way  in  which  you  can  go  on 
with  your  private  work  or  thought,  perfectly  well, 
perhaps  all  the  better,  for  the  general  roar  of  the  city, 
while  a  single  hammer  clanging  under  your  window 
iiistracts  you  and  compels  you  to  hear  it.  How  shall 
such  a  critic  enter  into  your  preaching  ?  What  in- 
fluence shall  it  have  upon  your  sermon  to  know  that 
he  is  there  ?  The  influence,  I  should  say,  of  making 
the  whole  sermon  more  true  and  conscientious,  more 
complete  in  the  best  qualities  that  belong  to  all  good 
Bermons.  But  not  the  influence  of  changing  the  sei'- 
mon's  essential  character.  Preach  the  Gospel  all  the 
more  seriously,  simpl}^  mightily  if  you  can,  because 
of  the  unsympathetic  criticism  that  it  has  to  meet, 
but  let  it  be  the  same  Gospel  which  you  Avould  [lour 
into  ears  hungry  to  receive  it.  The  two  faults  that 
you  have  to  avoid  in  preaching  to  unbelief  are,  Deti- 


THE   CONGREGATION.  197 

ance  and  Obsequience.  One  makes  the  unbeliever 
hate  your  truth,  and  the  other  makes  him  despise  it. 
Be  frank.,  brave,  simple.  There  is  nothing  the  un- 
believer honors  like  belief.  Let  the  influence  of 
your  supercilious  and  sceptical  audience  be  primarily 
upon  yourself,  making  you  more  serious  and  eager  , 
then  let  it  come  indirectly  into  your  sermon,  not 
changing  its  topic  but  filling  it  with  a  stronger  power 
of  conviction  and  of  love.  Of  course  I  am  speaking 
now,  not  of  the  sermons  in  which  one  specially  deals 
with  some  special  phase  of  scepticism,  but  only  of 
the  general  tenor  of  a  man's  preaching  in  view  of  this 
part  of  his  congregation. 

The  next  element  in  the  congregation  of  which  I 
wish  to  speak  is  less  interesting  than  these  two ;  per- 
haps, also,  more  puzzling.  In  every  congregation 
there  are  many  people  who  come  to  church,  as  it 
seems,  purely  from  habit.  As  with  the  supercilious 
hearers,  it  is  hai"d  to  tell  why  they  come,  but  not  now 
because  of  any  positive  reasons  why  they  should  not, 
but  merely  from  the  absence  of  any  reasons  why  they 
ihould.  Such  a  hearer  seems  to  be  docile,  but  his 
docility  consists  in  never  doubting  or  denying  what 
you  say.  He  has  probably  grown  up  in  the  Church. 
There  is  more  or  less  of  the  notion  of  respectability 
^11  aching  to  that  mysterious  impulse  which  every 
Sunday  turns  his  steps  toward  the  sanctuary.  Prob- 
ably if  you  could  get  deep  encugb,  deeper  than  I  lis 


198  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

own  consciousness  of  its  causes,  you  would  find  that 
some  vague  fear  Lad  something  to  do  at  least  with 
the  origin,  perhaps  with  the  continuance  of  thia 
strange  habit.  He  is  no  unusual  sight.  He  comes 
and  goes  in  all  our  churches.  In  many  cliurches  it 
seems  as  if  such  as  he  made  up  a  large  part  of  th? 
congregation.  Now  what  shall  we  say  of  him  ?  First 
of  all,  certainly,  as  we  said  of  the  critic,  that  we  have 
a  right  to  believe  that  we  have  not  wholly  fathomed 
the  secret  of  his  presence.  At  least  we  may  hope 
tha,t,  however  unconsciously  and  vaguely,  the  spirit 
of  the  place  has  reached  him.  Hoping  this,  you  may 
expect  to  see  the  unconscious  impulse  develop  into  a 
conscious  seeking,  if  you  can  intensify  the  spirit  of 
the  place,  and  make  it  more  positive  about  him. 
The  form  in  which  the  change  takes  place  will  vary 
according  to  his  character.  It  may  be  sudden  and 
vehement ;  a  conversion  as  true  and  picturesque  as 
any  that  comes  to  one  who,  after  years  of  brutal 
ignorance,  hears  for  the  first  time  the  story  of  the 
Saviour.  Or  it  may  be  very  gradual,  the  slow,  still 
drawing  to  a  focus,  and  quickening  into  fire  of  that 
heat  which  he  has  been  absorbing,  without  knowing 
it,  so  long.  There  are  two  effects  of  every  sermon, 
one  special,  in  the  enforcement  of  a  single  thought,  or 
the  inculcation  of  a  single  duty;  the  other  general,  in 
the  diffusion  of  a  sense  of  the  beauty  of  holiness  and 
the  value  of  truth.     To  the  second  of  these  effects, 


THE    CONGREGATION.  199 

ti.is  routine  listener  has  been  susceptible  during  many 
a  service  and  sermon  that  seemed  to  pass  across  him 
like  the  wind.  However  the  awakening  comes,  there 
is  no  happier  sight  for  any  minister  to  see.  It  puts 
new  vigor  into  him,  makes  him  believe  his  truth  by 
one  more  evidence,  and  teaches  him  that  lesson  which 
the  preacher  must  know,  but  M'hich  he  can  only  leai'n 
thoroughly  out  of  experiences  such  as  this,  that  it  is 
not  his  business  to  despair  of  anybody.  Perhaps,  so 
far  as  the  minister  is  concerned,  this  is  the  final  cause 
of  this  most  discouraging  being's  presence  in  the  con- 
gregation. He  furnishes  the  minister  now  and  then 
with  an  encouragement  such  as  nobody  but  himself 
could  furnish.  And,  in  the  mean  time,  sitting  there 
with  the  calm  countenance  which  has  faced  so  many 
Bermons,  if  anything  could  sting  the  jaded  and  com- 
monplace minister  into  freshness  and  pointedness,  it 
would  seem  as  if  it  must  be  this  man's  presence.  He 
shames  you  and  inspires  you.  He  makes  you  feel 
your  responsibility,  and  makes  you  eager  not  to  boast 
of  it.  He  reminds  you  of  your  duty  and  your  fee- 
bleness. He  rebukes  anything  fantastic  or  unreal 
in  your  preaching.  He  tempts  your  plainest,  and 
directest,  and  tersest  truth.  There  is  a  prayer  in  an 
old  Russian  Liturgy  which  always  seemed  to  me  the 
very  model  of  a  minister's  prayer,  which  I  wish  that 
^11  of  us  ministers  could  learn  to  pray  continually, 
ind  wliich  this  man  in  your  congregation  makes  you 


200  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

pray  with  double  earnestness,  — ''  O  Lord  and  Sover- 
eign of  my  Life,  take  from  nie  the  Spirit  of  idleness, 
despair,  love  of  power,  and  unprofitable  speaking." 

But  from  these  classes  let  us  turn  to  that  part  of  a 
confjrefjation  which  constitutes  its  chief  and  most  in- 
spiring  interest.  I  mean  those  who  in  any  way  are 
to  be  characterized  as  earnest  seekers  after  truth.  It 
is  the  element  that  calls  out  all  that  is  best  in  a 
preacher.  Very  often  as  we  read  Christ's  teachings, 
we  can  almost  feel  His  eye  wandering  here  and  there 
across  the  motley  crowd  around  Him,  till  He  finds 
some  one  man  evidently  in  earnest,  and  then  the 
discourse  sets  towards  him,  and  we  almost  feel  the 
Saviour's  heart  beat  with  anxiety  to  help  some  poor 
forgotten  creature,  who  has  long  since  past  out  of  the 
memory  of  man,  but  in  whom  on  that  day  so  long 
ago  He  saw  a  seeker.  And  we  may  say  with  cer- 
tainty that  any  man  who  has  not  in  him  the  power 
of  quick  response  to  the  appeal  of  spiritual  hunger, 
lacks  a  fundamental  quality  of  the  true  preacher. 
There  are  some  men  who  cannot  see  boilil}'  pain  with- 
out a  longing  to  relieve  it,  which  begets  an  ingenuity 
in  relieving  it,  out  of  which  spring  all  the  best  refine- 
ments of  the  doctor's  art.  There  are  other  men  who, 
just  in  the  same  way,  perceive  the  wants  and  longings 
of  men's  souls,  and  in  them  is  begotten  the  holy 
ingenuity  which  the  true  preacher  usi-s.  The  soul 
quickens  the  mind   to  its  most  complete  fertilitv. 


THE   CONGREGATION.  201 

I  do  not  subdivide  this  class.  It  includes  the  whole 
range  of  personal  earnestness.  The  heart  just  con- 
scious of  some  need,  all  ignorant  of  what  it  is,  dis- 
satisfied and  restless,  not  alone  from  the  unsatisfac- 
toriness  of  earthly  things,  but  likewise  from  a  true 
attraction  which  comes  to  it  from  a  higher  life,  this 
heart  is  close  beside  another  which  has  long  knowh 
the  truth  and  long  rested  on  the  love  of  Christ  but 
yet  is  always  craving  a  deeper  truth  and  a  more  un- 
hindered love.  The  two  hearts  belong:  together. 
They  help  to  throw  the  same  kind  of  spirit  into  the 
congregation.  They  send  up  the  same  kind  of  in- 
spiration to  the  preacher.  It  is  good  always  to  think 
of  these  two  hearts  together,  to  count  your  congrega- 
tion, not  by  the  point  in  Christian  attainment  which 
you  conceive  them  to  have  reached,  but  by  the  spirit- 
ual desire  and  eagerness  which  you  can  perceive  in 
them.  We  may  mistake  the  first.  We  can  hardly 
be  mistaken  about  the  second.  Here  must  be  the 
preacher '^s  real  encouragement.  Behind  all  tests  which 
the  church-membership  lists  and  the  contribution 
boxes  can  furnish,  there  lies  the  knowledge,  which 
comes  out  of  all  his  anxious  intercourse  with  them, 
whether  these  men  and  women  to  whom  he  preaches 
are  seeking  for  more  truth  and  higher  life.  It  seems 
\l,s  if  one  of  the  ways  in  which  the  Lord's  beatitude 
about  the  hungerers  and  thirsters  after  righteousnesa 
eame  true  was  by  the  power  to  help  them  which  tho 


202  LECTURF.S   n\  PRE  AC  TUNG. 

very  sight  of  their  thirst  and  hunger  gave  to  tlioae 
whom  God  had  sent  to  be  their  feeders. 

And  I  believe  that  the  proportion  of  tliis  class  in 
the  general  congregation  is  much  greater  than  we  are 
apt  to  imagine.  In  all  life,  and  nowhere  more  than 
in  what  we  say  about  the  Church  and  its  work,  cyn- 
ical and  disparaging  ideas  are  capable  of  much  more 
clever,  epigrammatic  statement  than  hopeful  ideas.  So 
they  have  easy  currency  and  impose  on  people.  It  is- 
easy  to  draw  the  picture  of  the  faithless  or  frivolous 
elements  in  a  congregation  till  it  appears  as  if  the 
whole  compau}^  which  meets  every  Sunday  were  in  an 
elaborate  conspiracy  to  make  sport  of  itself,  as  if  a 
crowd  of  people  came  together  to  criticise  what  none 
of  them  believed,  and  to  endure  with  half-concealed 
impatience  what  none  of  them  cared  anything  about. 
But  such  a  picture,  the  more  cleverly  and  sweepingly 
it  is  drawn,  evidently  disproves  itself.  If  that  were 
the  congregation,  evidently  there  would  not  long  be 
any  congregation.  If  that  were  wliat  their  meeting 
meant,  evidently  they  would  not  meet  again  and  again 
year  after  year.  No  mere  momentum  of  a  past  im- 
pulse could  carry  along  so  dead  a  weight.  No,  there 
is  in  the  congregation  as  its  heart  and  soul  a  craving 
after  truth.  Believe  in  that.  Let  it  give  an  expec- 
tant look  to  the  whole  congregation  in  your  eyes. 
Let  it  fill  your  study  as  you  write  at  home.  And  if 
i,raong  the  elements  which  make  up  your  great  con- 


THE   CONGREGATION.  20£ 

grogation  you  grow  bewildered  and  cannot  t^U  lo 
winch  one  you  ought  to  write  or  speak,  I  do  not 
hesitate  at  all  to  say  let  it  be  this  one.  This  is  the 
spirit  to  which  if  you  speak  you  will  be  sure  to  speak 
most  universally.  One  sermon  here  and  there  to 
those  who  are  entirely  indifferent,  beating  their 
sleepy  carelessness  awake  ;  one  sermon  here  and 
there  to  those  who  are  scornfully  sceptical,  showing 
them  if  you  can  how  weak  their  superciliousness  is, 
a  sermon  fired  if  need  be  with  something  of  "  the 
scorn  of  scorn ;"  one  sermon  here  and  there  per- 
haps for  those  rare  few  whose  life  seems  to  have  mas- 
tered truth  and  bathed  itself  in  love,  a  sermon  of 
congratulation  and  of  peace  ;  but  almost  -all  your  ser- 
mons with  the  seekers  in  your  eye.  Preaching  to 
them  you  shall  preach  to  all.  The  indifferent  shall 
be  awakened  into  hope;  the  scornful  shall  feel  some 
sting  of  shame  ;  and  before  those  who  are  most  con- 
scious of. what  God  has  done  for  them  shall  open 
visions  of  what  greater  things  he  yet  may  do,  and 
like  St.  Paul  they  may  forget  the  things  behind  and 
press  forward  with  a  new  desire. 

It  is  from  the  recognition  of  this  element  in  the 
congregation  that  the  minister's  perception  of  the 
necessary  variety  of  Christian  life  proceeds.  All 
earnestness  emphasizes  individuality.  So  long  as  you 
Bee  no  personal  anxiety  in  your  people's  ej^es,  you 
may  calmly  form  your  own  plans  about  them,  make 


204  LECTURES   ON   PREACHING. 

ap  your  mind  what  they  are  to  be  made,  an  i  go  to 
work  to  make  tliem  that  with  certain  expectation 
that  they  will  take  your  truth  in  just  your  way,  and 
shape  their  lives  into  the  mould  which  you  lay  before 
them  as  if  it  showed  the  only  shape  of  Christian  char- 
acter. But  when  you  feel  the  anxious  wish  of  men 
and  women  really  seeking  after  truth,  when  the  cry 
"  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  "  sounds  in  your 
quickened  ears  from  all  the  intent  and  silent  pews, 
then  is  the  time  when  you  really  learn  how  wide  and 
various  salvation  is.  The  revival  and  the  inquiry 
room  must  always  widen  a  man's  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  they  are  only  the  emphatic  expressions  of 
what  is  always  present  and  may  always  be  felt  in 
every  congregation.  A  minister  once  said  to  me  how 
strange  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  been  preaching 
one  truth  in  one  language  for  years  and  yet  the 
people  who  came  to  him  moved  by  the  truth  he  taught 
never  conceived  it  in  his  form,  nor  used,  as  they  told 
him  their  experience,  the  language  in  which  he  had 
set  the  truth  before  them.  It  troubled  him.  It  made 
him  wonder  whether  the  language  he  had  used  was 
wrong  and  false  ;  perhaps  also  whether  the  truth 
which  they  stated  so  differently  really  was  the  same 
truth  which  he  had  tried  to  teach  them.  To  mo  it 
rather  showed  that  there  must  have  been  truth  and 
Tioble  reality  about  his  words,  a  genuinely  feeding 
powar,  that   men  should    have  taken  them    as   they 


THE    CONGREGATION.  205 

take  the  healthy  corn  out  of  the  fields  and  turn  it 
into  all  kinds  of  strength  and  work.  However  that 
may  have  been,  the  more  truly  you  think  of  your  con- 
gregation as  seekers  after  salvation,  to  whom  you  are 
to  open  the  sacred  doors,  the  more  ready  you  will  be 
to  see  each  entering  in  to  a  salvation  peculiarly  his 
own.  You  will  be  glad  and  not  sorry  when  a  man 
tells  you  what  God  has  done  for  him,  and  only  gradu- 
ally you  find  that  it  is  the  truth  which  you  told  him, 
transformed  into  some  new  shape  of  which  you  never 
dreamed,  that  is  the  new  treasure  of  his  life. 

These,  then,  are  the  elements  which  make  up  the 
congregation.  They  are  the  constant  factors.  In 
order  to  realize  the  congregation  entirely,  we  must 
think  of  it  as  not  closed,  but  open,  and  always  in- 
eluding  some  peojjlewho  as  mere  strangers  have  wan- 
dered in  and  taken  their  seats  among  the  people  who 
are  always  there.  They  suggest  the  outside  world. 
Their  unfamiliar  faces  remind  the  preacher  of  the 
general  humanity.  They  are  not  classified  at  all. 
They  are  simply  men  and  women.  I  think  it  is  a 
great  advantage  to  a  congregation  that  it  should  have 
such  an  element.  They  are  to  a  congregation  what 
the  few  people  who  came  into  contact  with  Jesus  who 
were  not  Jews  —  such  as  the  Syrophenician  woman, 
and  the  Centurion,  and  the  Greeks,  who  asked  to  see 
him  —  were  to  Christ's  disciples.  They  kept  men'? 
conception  of  His  ministry  from  closing  in  tJghtly  to 


206  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  Jewish  people.  This  is  the  danger  of  the  coun- 
try parish,  where  you  know  everybody  who  cornea 
into  the  church.  You  forget  the  mission  to  the  world. 
I  know  no  safeguard  against  such  forgetfulness  but  a 
deep  sense  of  the  general  humanity  of  the  people  un- 
derneath their  special  characters,  W'hich  shall  make 
them  true  specimens  of  the  race,  as  well  as  the  dis- 
tinct individuals,  whose  faces,  names,  and  ways  you 
know. 

These  are  the  elements,  then.  Now  mingle  these 
elements  in  j-^our  mind,  and  ask  what  sort  of  body 
they  make.  What  will  be  the  general  characteristics 
of  this  assemblage,  so  heterogeneous  and  yet  with 
such  a  true  unity  in  it,  which  we  call  The  Congrega- 
tion ?  It  has  the  genuine  solidity  which  comes  from 
certain  fundamental  assumptions.  It  is  gathered  as 
a  Cln-istian  gathering.  It  is  not  loose  and  incohe- 
rent, like  the  multitude  who  stood  about  Paul  on  the 
Hill  of  Mars,  merely  asking  in  general  for  what  is 
new,  or,  more  earnestly,  for  what  is  true.  It  has  a 
positive  character.  It  accepts  a  positive  authority. 
And  yet  it  is  alert  and  questioning.  The  truth  which 
it  desires  is  open  to  abundant  varieties  of  conception 
and  application.  It  is  this  combination  of  solidity 
with  vitality,  this  harmonizing  of  settled  conditions 
with  constant  activity  and  growth,  which  makes,  I 
think,  the  most  mai'ked  character  of  the  Christian 
congregation.     It  is  an  institution  pervaded  with  in- 


THE   CONGREGATION.  207 

dividual  life;  it  is  an  assembly  of  individuals  to 
which  has  been  given  something  of  the  coherence  of 
an  institution.  It  is  the  home  at  once  of  Faith  and 
Thought.  Try  to  keep  all  of  this  character  in  your 
congregation.  Remember  both  its  institutional  char- 
acter and  its  individual  character.  Do  not"  try  ^o 
make  it  a  liighly  organized  machine,  nor  to  let  it 
merely  dissipate  into  an  audience.  Make  it  one,  with- 
out losing  its  multitude  ;  treat  it  as  many,  without 
forgetting  its  oneness.  Let  it  be  full  of  the  spirit  of 
autlioritative  truth,  iind  at  the  same  time  of  per- 
sonal responsibility  for  thought  and  action. 

If  we  look  at  the  Christian  congregation  in  another 
and  perhaps  a  simpler  way,  it  stands  as  perhaps  the 
best  representative  assembly  of  humaliity  that  you 
can  nnd  in  the  world.  Men,  women,  and  children 
are  all  there  together.  No  age,  no  sex  must  monopo- 
Hze  its  privileges.  All  ministrations  to  it  must  be  full 
at  once  of  vigor  and  of  tenderness,  the  father's  and 
the  mother's  touch  at  once.  Riches  and  poverty 
meet  indifferently  in  the  idea,  however  it  may  be  in 
the  realit}^,  of  the  congregation.  Even  learning  and 
ignorance  are  recognized  as  properly  meeting  there. 
However  difficult  it  may  be  to  do  it,  it  is  clearl}'^  rec- 
ognized that  men  ought  to  preach  so  that  the  wisest 
and  the  simplest  alike  can  understand  and  get  the 
blessing.  Here,  then,  is  pure  humanity.  What  othei 
»8sembly  so  brings  us  together  on  the  simple  warrant 


208      LECTURES    ON  PREACHING. 

of  our  race.  This  is  what  I  always  think  is  meant 
by  that  record  of  tlie  ministry  of  Jesus,  "  The  com- 
mon peoph^.  heard  Him  gladly."  It  was  not  the  pooi 
because  of  some  privilege  that  belonged  to  their  pov- 
erty. It  was  those,  rich  or  poor,  wise  or  rude,  in 
wliom  the  fundamental  elements  of  human  life  were 
unclouded  by  artificial  culture.  Pharisee  or  publican, 
fisherman  or  philosopher,  if  they  had  not  forgotten 
to  be  men,  they  were  still  "  common  people,"  and 
heard  the  huuian  Saviour  gladly.  It  was  to  their  hu- 
manity He  preached,  and  nothing  that  He  knew  of 
God  was  too  precious  to  be  brought,  if  He  could  bring 
it,  to  their  understaSiding.  Preach  to  this  same  hu- 
numity,  and  you  too  will  give  it  your  best.  Tru.->t 
the  people  to  whom  you  preach  more  than  most  min- 
isters do.  Begin  your  ministry  by  being  sure  that  if 
you  give  your  people  your  best  thought,  it  ^yill  be 
none  too  good  for  them.  They  will  take  it  all.  Only 
be  sure  that  it  is  real,  and  that  you  are  giving  it  to 
them  for  their  best  good,  and  that  it  is  what,  if  they 
did  receive  it,  would  do  them  good,  and  then  give 
them  the  ver^'^  best  and  truest  that  you  know.  For 
one  minister  who  preaches  "  over  people's  heads  " 
there  are  twenty  whose  preaching  goes  wandering 
about  under  men's  feet,  or  is  flung  off  into  the  air,  in 
.-ho  right  intellectual  plane  perhaps,  but  in  a  wholl\ 
<Frong  direction. 
Not  that  there  must  not  be  discrimination  ;  only  it 


THE   CONGREGATION.  209 

must  not  be  in  the  quality  of  your  thought.  Never 
your  best  thought  for  the  old,  your  cheap  thought  for 
the  children  ;  never  your  best  thought  for  the  rich, 
and  poor  thought  for  the  poor.  The  best  that  you 
can  give  is  not  too  good  for  any  one  ;  but  in  that 
giving  of  the  best,  there  is  need  for  the  most  true  and 
delicate  discrimination  as  to  how  it  shall  be  given, 
and  which  part  of  it  shall  be  given  to  this  congrega- 
tion and  which  to  that.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  rule. 
It  belongs  to  wise  and  sympathetic  instinct.  To  cul- 
tivate that  instinct,  to  learn  to  feel  a  congregation, 
to  let  it  claim  its  own  from  him,  is  one  of  the  first 
duties  of  a  minister.  Until  you  do  that  you  may  be 
a  great  expounder,  a  brilliant^  "  sermonizer,"  but  you 
cannot  be  a  preacher.  Never  to  be  tempted  to  pro- 
foundness where  it  would  be  thrown  away  ;  never  to 
be  childlike  when  it  is  manly  vigor  that  you  need ; 
never  to  be  dull  when  you  mean  to  be  solemn,  nor 
frivolous  when  you  mean  only  to  be  bright ;  this 
comes  from  a  very  quick  power  of  perception  and 
adaptation.  Our  work  has  always  had  some  curious 
connections  with  the  art  of  fishing.  Let  me  quote 
you  from  Isaak  Walton  what  Piscator  says  to  Vena- 
tor while  they  sit  by  the  stream-side  at  breakfast,  on 
the  morning  of  the  first  lesson  in  trout- fishing.  I 
was  struck  by  its  appropriateness  to  the  subject  of 
discrimination  in  preaching.  It  may  help  you,  if  you 
remember  it,  when  you  come  to  "  fish  for  trout  with 

14 


210  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

a  worm  "  yourself,  and  may  make  no  unfit  rule  foi 
real  timeliness  in  the  pulpit.  "  Take  this  for  a  rule," 
he  says,  "  when  you  fish  for  trout  with  a  worm,  let 
your  line  have  so  much  and  not  more  lead  than  will 
fit  the  stream  in  which  you  fish  ;  that  is  to  say,  more 
in  a  great  troublesome  stream  than  in  a  smaller  that 
is  quieter,  as  near  as  may  be  so  nmch  as  will  sink  the 
bait  to  the  bottom  and  keep  it  still  in  motion  and  not 
more."  Weight  and  movement,  —  these  are  what  we 
need  in  fishing  and  in  preaching. 

The  congregation  being^what  it  is,  let  me  ask,  in 
the  few  moments  that  remain  to-day,  what  it  can  do 
for  the  preacher,  both  in  the  way  of  help  and  in  the 
way  of  danger. 

In  the  way  of  help.,  it  brings  him  the  inspiration  of 
its  numbers,  the  boldness  and  freedom  of  its  miti- 
gated personality,  and  the  larger  test  of  his  work.  It 
is  not  safe  to  judge  of  the  effect  of  your  work  by  any 
one  individual  ;  but  when  a  congregation  pronounces 
on  it,  not  by  the  unreliable  witness  of  praise,  but  by 
the  testimony  of  its  evidently  changed  condition,  its 
higher  life,  its  more  complete  devotion,  it  is  never 
wrong.  Do  not  despise  the  witness  that  even  the 
meanest  of  your  people  bear  to  your  faithfulness  or 
unfaithfulness.  When  it  really  rains,  the  puddles  as 
«vell  as  the  oceans  bear  witness  to  the  shower.  Trust 
four  people's  judgment  on  your  work  :    what  they 


THE   CONGREGATION.  211 

say  about  it,  a  good  deal  ;   but  what  it  does  upon 
them,  much  more. 

And  I  cannot  help  bearing  witness  to  the  fairness 
and  considerateness  whi.h  belongs  to  this  strange 
composite  being,  the  congregation.  His  insight  is 
very  true,  and  his  conscience  on  the  whole  is  very 
right.  If  he  sees  that  his  minister  is  totally  devoted 
to  him,  and  giving  his  life  up  to  his  work,  he  stands 
by  that  minister  of  his  and  provides  for  him  abun- 
dantly. If  he  sees  that  his  minister  is  taking  good 
care  of  his  own  interests,  he  lets  him  do  it,  as  he 
would  let  any  other  man,  and  does  not  trouble  him- 
self about  it,  as  there  is  no  reason  that  he  should. 
Whether  the  minister  feels  the  congregation  or  not, 
the  congregation  feels  the  minister.  Often  the  horse 
knows  the  rider  better  than  the  rider  knows  the  horse. 
There  may  be  exceptions  which  would  not  justify  my 
confidence.  In  all  these  lectures  I  am  only  givino- 
you  the  impressions  which  have  come  out  of  my 
own  experience.  I  am  sure  it  will  be  well  if  you 
can  never  allow  yourself  to  complain  that  your  con- 
gregation neglect  you  without  first  asking  yourself 
whether  you  have  given  them  any  reason  why  they 
should  attend  to  you. 

Indeed,  the  danger  of  the  congregation  to  the  min- 
ister comes  more  from  their  indulgence  than  from 
their  opposition  The  feeling  of  the  strongest  min- 
isters about  the  superficialness  of  clerical  popularity 


212  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

is  very  striking.  Nothing  seemed  to  vex  Robertson 
60  much  as  to  be  talked  of  as  the  idol  of  the  crowd. 
Indeed,  he  is  absolutely  morbid  about  it,  and  liates 
that  to  which  he  need  only  have  been  indifferent.  It 
would  seem  as  if  mere  popularity',  to  a  man  of  any 
independence,  was  the  driest  of  all  Dead  Sea  fruits. 
And  there  is  reason  why  it  should  be  so.  It  is  the 
M'orst  and  feeblest  part  of  your  congregation  tluit 
makes  itself  heard  in  vociferous  appUiuse,  and  it  ap- 
plauds that  in  you  which  pleases  it.  Robertson,  in 
one  of  his  letters,  says  of  a  friend  :  "  He  has  lost  his 
power,  which  was  once  the  greatest  that  I  ever  knew. 
The  sentimental  people  of  his  congregation  attribute 
it  to  an  increase  of  spirituality,  but  it  is,  in  truth,  a 
falling-off  of  energy  of  grasp."  Those  words  suggest 
the  cause  of  many  a  minister's  decay,  the  Capua  where 
many  a  preaching  Hannibal  has  been  ruined.  "  Turba 
est  argumentum  pessimi,"  says  Seneca.  There  are 
certain  other  causes  wliicli  help  to  produce  the  im- 
pression, but  still  there  is  truth  in  the  belief  that 
much  of  the  best  thinking  and  preaching  of  the  land 
is  done  in  obscure  parishes  and  by  unfamous  preach- 
ers. The  true  balance,  if  we  could  only  reach  and 
keep  it,  evidently  is  in  neither  courting  nor  despising 
the  popular  applause,  to  feel  it  as  every  healthy  mau 
feels  the  ap]n-oval  of  his  fellow-UK'n,  and  yet  never  to 
be  beguiled  by  it  from  that  which  is  the  only  true 
object  of  our  work,  God's  truth  and  men's  salvation, 


THE   CONGREGATION.  213 

And  remember  this,  that  the  only  way  to  be  saved 
from  the  poison  of  men's  flattery  is  to  be  genuineljr 
devoted  to  those  same  men's  good.  It"  you  really 
want  to  drag  a  man  out  of  the  fire,  you  will  not  be 
distracted  into  self-conceit  by  his  praises  of  the  grace 
and  softness  of  the  hand  that  you  reach  out  to  him. 
You  will  say,  "  Stop  your  compliments  and  take 
hold." 

The  subject  of  the  popularity  of  ministers  is  indeed 
a  curious  one,  and  may  well  merit  a  few  moment's 
study.  We  hardly  realize,  I  believe,  how  far  the  de- 
sire for  popularity  in  this  time  and  land  has  tiiken 
the  place  of  the  ambition  for  preferment  which  we 
read  of  in  English  clerical  history,  and  which  has 
so  strongly  and  so  justly  excited  our  di&like.  He 
who  used  there  to  seek  the  favor  of  a  bishop,  or  some 
other  patron,  bids  here  for  the  liking  of  the  multitude. 
It  is  a  question  hardly  worth  the  asking,  which  ambi- 
tion calls  out  the  lower  arts,  or  does  the  greater  mis- 
chief. Both  are  very  bad.  To  set  one's  heart  on 
being  popular  is  fatal  to  the  preacher's  best  growth. 
To  escape  from  that  desire,  one  needs  to  know  that 
the  men  who  are  in  no  sense  popular  favorites  do 
much  of  the  very  best  work  of  the  ministry.  In  all 
work  there  seems  to  be  generally  two  classes  of 
workers,  one  whose  processes  of  working  are  ap- 
parent, the  other  whose  results  only  appear.  Now 
most  popular  preachers  seem  to  me  to  belong  to  the 


214  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

first  class,  and  to  owe  their  popularity  to  that  charao 
teristic.  Not  only  what  they  do,  but  the  wa}'  in  which 
they  do  it  interests  people.  It  is  not  only  the  power 
of  the  truth  which  they  declare :  it  is  the  eloquence 
of  the  sermons  in  which  they  declare  it.  It  is  not 
only  the  gracious  influence  they  exercise :  it  is  their 
gracious  way  of  exercising  it,  the  smile,  the  tone,  the 
transparent  vision  of  the  kindly  heart.  Let  a  man 
understand  this,  and  it  will  certainly  require  no  very 
profound  philosophy  or  devotion  for  him  to  let  the 
popularity  go  if  he  can  do  the  work.  The  popularity 
is  an  accident :  the  power  is  essential. 

And,  no  doubt,  the  absence  of  lively  popular  favor 
has  an  influence  in  enabling  a  minister  to  apprehend 
the  larger  indications  of  the  successful  working  of  his 
truth.  The  people's  applause  emphasizes  the  small 
success,  and  tempts  a  man  to  be  content  with  that. 
He  who  works  in  silence  becomes  aware  of  the  larger 
movements  of  the  truth  and  the  surer  conquests  of 
the  power  of  God.  The  small  signs  fail  ;  there  is  no 
glitter  in  the  arms,  no  shout  of  triumph  anywhere, 
but  often  the  very  silence  lets  one  hear  more  clearly 
the  great  progress  that  is  going  on  all  over  the  field.    . 

Again,  there  is  great  difference  in  men  according 
as  they  seem  to  possess  or  to  lack  themselves  the 
qualities  and  conditions  which  they  try  to  create  in 
other  people.  Some  men  are  all  afire  themselves,  and 
•eeni  to  fire  others  by  contagion  ;  other  men  appear 


THE    CONGREGATION.  215 

cold,  but  send  forth  fire  from  their  very  coldness. 
Some  men  are  full  of  movement  and  so  make  others 
move ;  other  men  seem  sluggish  and  yet  awaken 
others  to  a  vitality  which  they  do  not  seem  to  possess 

themselves. 

"  The  enormous  axle-tree 
That  whirls  (how  slow  itself  ! )  ten  thousand  spindles." 

In  general,  the  popularity,  the  quick  general  sym- 
pathy and  admiration,  will  go  with  the  first  class  of 
men.  The  others  will  do  their  work  in  quietness, 
with  much  power  but  not  much  observation. 

To  be  your  own  best  self  for  your  people's  sake. 
That  is  the  true  law  of  the  minister's  devotion. 
"  Loquendura  ut  multi,  sapiendum  ut  pauci  "  —  the 
thought  of  the  few  in  the  speech  of  the  many — that 
describes  a  popular  power  which  any  preacher  has 
not  only  the  right  but  the  duty  to  covet. 

The  whole  of  the  relation,  then,  between  the 
preacher  and  the  congregation  is  plain.  They  belong 
together.  But  neither  can  absorb  or  override  the 
other.  They  must  be  filled  with  mutual  respect. 
.He  is  their  leader,  but  his  leadership  is  not  one  con- 
stant strain,  and  never  is  forgetful  of  the  higher  guid- 
ance upon  which  they  both  rely.  It  is  like  the  rope 
by  which  one  ship  draws  another  out  into  the  sea. 
The  rope  is  not  always  tight  between  them,  and  all 
the  while  the  tide  on  which  they  float  is  carrying 
them  both.     So  it  is  not  mere  leading  and  following. 


216      LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

It  is  one  of  the  very  highest  pictures  of  human  com- 
panionship that  can  be  seen  on  earth.  Its  constant 
presence  has  given  Christianity  much  of  its  noblest 
and  sweetest  color  in  all  ages.  It  has  much  of  the  in- 
timacy of  the  family  with  something  of  the  breadth 
and  dignity  that  belongs  to  the  state.  It  is  too  sa- 
cred to,  be  thought  of  as  a  contract.  It  is  a  union 
which  God  joins  together  for  purposes  worthy  of  His 
care.  When  it  is  worthily  realized,  who  can  say  that 
it  may  not  stretch  beyond  the  line  of  death,  and  they 
who  have  been  minister  and  people  to  each  other  here, 
be  something  holy  and  peculiar  to  each  other  in  the 
City  of  God  forever  ? 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR  OUR  AGE. 


T  AM  to  speak  to  you  to-day  upon  the  preacher  in 
his  special  relation  to  our  own  time.  There  is  a 
strange  sound,  perhaps,  when  we  think  about  it,  in 
the  very  suggestion  that  the  preacher  of  the  Gospel 
is  to  be  something  special  Avith  reference  to  the  spe- 
cial time  in  which  he  lives.  For  we  have  dwelt  upon 
the  one  universal  and  eternal  message  which  tlie 
preacher  is  sent  to  carry  to  the  world.  That  message 
never  changes.  The  identity  of  Christianity  lies  in 
its  identity.  Nay,  the  identity  of  man  is  bound  up 
with  it;  and  so  long  as  man  is  what  he  is,  what  God 
has  to  say  to  him  by  His  servants  will  certainly  al- 
ways be  the  same.  And  so  the  preacher,  as  the 
bearer  of  that  message,  must  have  his  true  identity, 
must  stand  before  men  in  essentially  the  same  figure 
and  speak  with  essentially  the  same  voice  in  all  the 
ages.  Where,  then,  does  the  adaptation  of  a  preacher 
to  his  own  age  come  in  ?  The  best  answer,  perhaps, 
would  be,  by  way  of  illustration,  in  the  position 
lyhich  every  live  and  cultivated  man  holds  with  refer- 
ence to  the  time  he  lives  in.    He  is,  in  the  first  placej 


218  LECTURES   ON  PREACHLVCr. 

a  mail  in  universal  human  history.  His  are  the 
rights,  the  duties,  and  the  standards  which  belong  to 
all  men  simply  as  men.  In  proportion  as  he  is  a 
strong,  wise  man,  this  larger  life  is  real  to  him.  He 
knows  that  he  will  live  his  special  life  more  healthily 
for  himself  and  more  helpfully  to  his  brethren,  not 
by  forgetting,  but  by  remembering  his  place  in  the 
general  and  continuous  humanity.  It  will  keep  his 
sight  truer.  Many  times  it  will  preserve  his  inde- 
pendence when  it  is  in  danger  from  the  fleeting  pas- 
sions of  the  hour.  But  yet  he  lives  the  special  life. 
He  is  a  man  of  his  own  day,  thoroughly  interested 
in  the  questions  that  are  exciting  men  around  him, 
pained  by  the  troubles,  delighted  by  the  joys,  and 
busy  in  the  tasks  of  his  own  time.  His  broad  hu- 
manity and  broad  culture  makes  him  a  man  of  all 
days ;  his  keen  life  and  quick  sympathies  and  healthy 
instincts  and  real  desire  for  work,  make  him  a  man 
of  his  own  day.  We  can  all  see  the  ideal  complete- 
ness of  such  a  life.  Whenever  we  have  seen  a  man 
at  all  attaining  it,  we  have  felt  how  complete  he  was. 
The  incompleteness  of  men  comes  as  they  fall  short 
of  this  on  one  side  or  the  other.  The  man  who  be- 
longs to  the  world  but  not  to  his  time,  grows  abstract 
and  vague,  and  lays  no  strong  grasp  upon  men's  lives 
.and  the  present  causes  of  their  actions.  Tlie  man 
who  belongs  to  his  time  but  not  to  the  world  growa 
thin  and  superficial. 


THE   MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  219 

And  just  exHctl^r  this  is  true  about  the  preacher. 
There  are  the  constant  and  unchanging  needs  of  men, 
ftnd  the  message  which  is  addressed  to  those  needs 
and  shares  their  unchangeableness  ;  and  then  there 
are  the  ever-varying  aspects  of  those  needs  to  which 
the  toys  of  the  message,  if  it  would  really  reach  the 
needy    soul,   must    intelligently  and    sympathetically 
correspond.     The  first  of  these  comes  of  the  preach- 
er's larger  life,  his    study  of   the    timeless  Word  of 
God,  his  intercourse  with  God  in  history,  his  personal 
communion   with  his  Master,  and  the  kuowledge  of 
those  depths  of  human  nature  which    never  chano-f 
whatever  waves  of   alteration  may  disturb    the  sur- 
face.     The    second    comes    from    a   constantly    alert 
watch  of    the  events    and    symptoms  of    the  current 
times,  begotten  of  a  deep  desire  that  the  salvation  of 
the  world,  which  is  always  going  on,  may  show  itself 
here  and  now  in  the  salvation  of  these  particular  men 
to  whom  the  preacher  speaks.     If  we  leave  out  the 
difference  of  natural  endowments  and  of  personal  de- 
votedness,  there  is  nothing  which  so  decides  the  dif- 
ferent kinds  as  well  as  the  different  degrees  of  min- 
isters' successes  as  the  presence    or  absence    of   this 
balance  and  proportion  of  the  general  and  special,  the 
•world-consciousness  and  the  time-consciousness.     The 
abstract  reasoner,  laying  his  deep  trains  of  thought 
which  run  far  wide  of  the  citadels  where  sin  is  now 
^trenched,   and    never   shatter   a   stone   of   present 


220  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

wickedness  with  their  ponderous  explosions,  whatever 
other  good  things  he  may  do,  fails  as  a  preacher  to 
men.  The  mere  critic  of  the  time  who,  with  no  deep 
principles  tmd  no  long  hopes,  goes  on  his  way  merrily 
or  fiercely  lopping  off  the  ugly  heads  of  the  vices  of 
the  time  with  his  light  switch  or  valiant  swqrd,  he, 
too,  fails  in  his  work,  and  by  and  by  is  wearied  and 
distressed  as  he  finds  the  surface  character  of  all  the 
reformation  to  which  he  brings  his  converts.  It  is 
the  first  sort  of  preaching  that  wearies  men  when 
they  complain  of  what  they  call  a  very  profound  but 
a  very  dull  sermon.  The  second  is  what  makes  peo- 
ple dissatisfied  with  a  sense  of  unthoroughness  as 
they  come  home  still  mildly  tingling  from  what  they 
call  a  sensational  sermon.  The  first  man  has  aimed 
at  truth  without  caring  for  timeliness.  The  second 
man  has  been  so  anxious  to  be  timely  that  he  has 
perhaps  distorted  truth,  and  certainly  robbed  her  of 
her  completeness.  Truth  and  timeliness  together 
make  the  full  preacher.  How  shall  you  win'  such 
fulness  ?  Let  me  say  one  or  two  general  words,  and 
leave  particulars  of  the  method  to  come  out,  if  they 
may,  all  tlirough  the  lecture.  First,  seek  always 
truth  first  and  timeliness  secoHd,  —  never  timeliness 
first  and  truth  second.  Then,  let  your  search  for 
trutli  be  deliberate,  systematic,  conscientious.  Let 
yo\ir  search  for  timeliness  consist  ratlu'r  in  seeking 
for  strong  8ym})a*:hy  with  your  kind,  a  real  share  ixi 


THE   MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  221 

tlieir  occupations,  and  a  hearty  intei'est  in  what  is 
going  on.  And  yet  again;  let  the  subjects  of  your 
sermons  be  mostly  eternal  truths,  and  let  the  timeli- 
ness come  in  the  illustration  of  those  truths  by,  and 
their  application  to,  the  events  of  current  life.  So 
you  will  make  the  thinking  of  your  hearers  larger, 
and  not  smaller,  as  you  preach  to  them. 

So  much  in  general.  But  now  let  us  come  to  this 
most  interesting  age  in  which  we  live  and  in  which 
we  are  set  to  preach.  I  want  to  point  out  two  or 
three  of  its  broadest  characteristics  and  see  how  they 
affect  the  preacher's  work.  I  do  not  undertake  any 
such  task  as  a  general  estimate  of  the  character  of 
our  strange  century  and  country.  I  only  want  to 
indicate  some  points  in  it  which  come  directly  home 
to  you  and  me,  and  to  see,  if  we  can,  how  we  shall 
treat  them.  Let  me  speak  of  the  feeling  of  our  time 
about  Truth  and  Life  in  general,  about  the  Ministry 
and  about  the  Bible. 

In  the  fii'st  place,  then,  there  are  certain  vaguely 
conceived  but  real  difficulties  lying  in  people's  minda 
to-day  against  which  the  Gospel  that  we  preach 
strikes.  We  meet  them  in  a  great  variety  of  forms. 
We  find  their  spirit  appearing  in  regions  of  intelli- 
gence where  there  cannot  be  any  understanding  of 
their  intellectual  statements.  The  most  common,  the 
most  wonderfully  subtle  and  pervasive  of  all  these  ia 
the  notion  of  Fate,  with  all  the  consequences  which 


222  LECTURES   OX  PREACHING. 

it  brings  ■with  it  to  the  ideas  of  responsibility  and 
even  to  the  fundamental  conception  of  personal  Life. 
We  are  so  occupied  with  watching  the  developments 
of  fatalistic  philosophy  in  its  higher  and  moi'e  scien- 
tific phases  that  I  think  we  often  fail  to  see  to  what 
an  extent  and  in  what  unexpected  forms  it  has  found 
its  way  into  the  common  life  of  men  and  is  governing 
their  thoughts  about  ordinary  things.  The  notion  of 
fixed  helplessness,  of  the  impossibility  of  any  strong 
power  of  a  man  over  his  own  life,  and,  along  with 
this,  the  mitigation  of  the  thought  of  responsibility 
which,  beginning  with  the  sublime  notion  of  a  man's 
being  answerable  to  God,  comes  down  to  think  of 
him  only  as  bound  to  do  his  duty  to  society,  then 
descends  to  consider  him  as  only  liable  for  the  harm 
which  he  does  to  himself,  and  so  finally  reaches  the 
absolute  abandonment  of  any  idea  of  judgment  or 
accountability  whatever,  —  all  this  is  very  much  more 
common  than  we  dream.  It  runs  down  through  all 
the  degrees  of  lessening  consciousness.  There  is 
nothing  stranger  than  to  watch  how  the  intelligent 
Bpaculations  of  the  learned  become  the  vague  preju- 
dices of  the  vulgar.  You  can  shut  up  nothing  within 
the  scholar's  study-door.  For  good  or  for  mischief 
all  that  the  wisest  are  thinking  becomes  in  some 
form  or  other  the  basis  upon  which  the  ignorant  live. 
Partly  this,  and  partly  a  power  which  works  just  the 
Dth»3r  way.     Partly  that  the  learned  are  led  on  by 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  223 

dieif  oneness  with  all  their  brethren  to  take  for  the 
subjects  of  their  study  those  things  to  which  the 
interest  of  the  unlearned  has  been  turned  and  to 
reduce  to  philosophical  expression  those  ideas  by 
which  the  rudest  are  shaping  their  lives.  "Whatever 
the  interaction  of  the  two  causes  may  have  been,  the 
result  is  here  in  a  certain  suspicion  of  fatalism  all 
around  us.  With  it  come  the  inevitable  conse- 
quences of  hopelessness  and  restraint  pervading  all 
society  and  influencing  all  action,  different  in  differ- 
ent natures,  hard  and  defiant  in  some,  soft  and  lux- 
urious in  others,  but  in  all  their  various  forms 
unfitting  men  for  the  best  happiness,  or  the  best 
growth,  or  the  best  usefulness  to  fellow-men.  This 
is  what  we  find  scattered  through  the  society  in 
which  we  live.  This  is  what  you  have  got  to  preach 
to,  my  young  friends.  You  will  not.  escape  it  by 
ministering  to  one  class  of  people  rather  than  to  an- 
other, for  it  runs  everywhere.  You  will  leave  it  in 
the  study  only  to  find  it  in  some  new  form  in  the 
workshop.  You  will  silence  it  in  the  dull  querulous 
discontent  of  the  boor  only  to  hear  it  in  the  calm  and 
resigned  and  lofty  philosophy  of  the  sage.  What 
preaching  can  you  meet  it  with  ?  Certainly  one 
may  point  out  the  broadest  features  of  the  preaching 
Mhich  alone  can  meet  it.  It  must  be  positive  preach- 
ing. There  never  was  an  age  when  negative  preach- 
ing, the  mere  assertion  of  what  is  not  true,  showed 


224  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

its  uselessness  as  it  does  to-day.  It  does  no  good  tc 
show  the  fatalist  that  fatahsra  is  untenable.  He 
does  not  really  believe  it ;  it  is  only  that  he  seems  to 
be  unable  to  believe  anything  else.  You  disprove  it, 
and  that  only  adds  another  to  the  heap  of  things  that 
are  incredible.  You  must  preach  positively,  telling 
him  what  is  true,  setting  God  before  his  heart  and 
bidding  it  know  its  Lord.  And  it  must  be  preaching 
to  the  conscience.  The  conscience  is  the  last  part  of 
our  personality  that  dies  into  the  death  of  fatalism. 
It  must  be  the  first  part  of  us  that  wakens  to  the 
privileges  and  obligations  of  personal  life.  Make  a 
man  know  that  he  is  wicked  and  that  he  may  be  good, 
and  his  self  and  God's  self  will  be  realities  to  him 
which  no  juggle  of  words  can  make  him  believe  do 
not  exist.  And,  thirdly,  there  never  was  an  age  that 
so  needed  to  have  Christ  preached  to  it,  the  personal 
Christ.  In  his  personality  the  bewildered  soul  must 
re-find  its  own  personal  life.  In  the  service  of  Him 
it  must  re-discover  the  possibility  and  the  privilege  of 
duty.  The  haunting  scepticism  must  be  invaded  by 
preaching  such  as  this.  The  doubt  which  has  grown 
up  so  vaguely  and  will  give  no  account  of  itself,  must 
be  overshadowed  and  undermined,  overshadowed  by 
the  vivid  majesty  of  God  in  Christ,  undermined  by 
the  sense  of  sin  and  the  necessity  of  righteousness. 
The  only  hope  of  its  complete  dispersion  is  to  pro^ 
duce  the  Christian  life  which  is  its  own  assurance, 


■       THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR  AGE.  225 

declares   its   own   freedom    and   prophesies   its   own 
possibilities. 

I  speak  of  this  tendency  to  doubt  qoncerning  spir- 
itual and  personal  forces  principally  as  it  appears  all 
through  the  movements  of  society  and  the  lives  of 
common  men.  I  have  not  much  to  say  here  about 
the  way  in  which  the  preacher  meets  it  in  the  theo- 
ries of  science,  the  guesses  at  the  philosophy  of  the 
universe  which  the  philosophers  of  our  time  have  made 
so  plentifully.  But  nobody  can  listen  to  sermons 
nowadays  and  not  be  struck  by  seeing  how  con- 
fusedly the  purpose  of  preaching  and  the  function  of 
tlie  preacher  seems  to  be  apprehended  by  those  who 
preach.  Among  the  preachers  who  busy  themselves 
with  what  mode'rn  science  is  doing  and  saying,  we 
can  easily  discern  several  classes.  One  class  claims 
competently  to  criticise  the  work  of  specialists  and  to 
revise  their  judgments,  even  about  those  subjects  on 
wdnch  they  ought  to  be  authorities.  It  attempts  to 
pronounce  with  competence  upon  the  results  of  scien- 
tific inquiry  in  a  summary  way  which  it  would  never 
tolerate  with  reference  to  its  own  peculiar  subjects  of 
study.  It  is  needless  to  say  how  this  class  puts  itself 
into  the  power  of  those  whom  it  criticises.  It  can  get 
the  material  for  its  criticism  only  from  them.  So 
Boon  as  it  leaves  the  field  of  general  reasoning  and 
attempts  to  touch  the  question  of  scientific  fact,  it 
must  look  for  its  facts  to  those  who,  for  the  time,  it  ia 

15 


226  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

treating  as  its  adversaries.  It  is  reduced  to  some, 
thing  of  the  helplessness  to  which  the  Israelites  were 
brought  when  the  Philistines  who  had  conquered 
them  compelled  them  to  come  to  their  smiths  to 
sharpen  every  man  his  share,  and  his  coulter,  and 
his  axe,  and  his  mattock.  Another  class  seems  to 
stand  ready,  not  merely  to  disown  the  power  of  com- 
petent criticism,  but  to  accept  with  headlong  zeal 
every  momentary  conclusion  of  modern  science,  even 
before  the  scientific  world  itself  has  learned  to  treat 
it  as  more  than  a  probable  hypothesis  ;  and  seems  to 
be  all  the  more  eager  to  accept  it  the  more  entirely 
it  seems  to  be  in  conflict  with  the  faith  of  Chris- 
tianity. No  one  will  deny,  I  think,  that  there  are 
among  the  disciples  of  natural  science  to-day  some 
men  who  curiously  repeat  on  their  own  ground  every 
offensive  and  arrogant  peculiarity  of  the  priestcraft 
whose  historical  enormities  they  so  fondly  and  truly 
upbraid.  It  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  how 
human  nature  is  the  same  at  heart,  and,  if  it  be  bad, 
will  show  the  same  kind  of  badness  whether  it  wear 
the  priest's  surplice  or  tlie  professor's  gown.  To  this 
overbearing  assumption  this  second  class  is  always  in 
great  haste  to  prostrate  itself.  Surely  the  spirit  ot 
both  of  these  classes  is  not  good.  Either  is  bad  > 
either  the  competence  with  which  some  clergymen 
attempt  to  pronounce  upon  the  value  of  scientific 
theories,  or  the  panic  in  which  other  clergymen  seem 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  'I'-ll 

to  be  waiting  only  to  surrender  to  the  first  man  with 
a   hammer   or   a   microscope  who    challenges    them. 
There  is  another  class  still  which  seems  to  be  merely 
frightened.     A  sense   of  vague  inevitable   danger  ia 
continually  haunting  those  who  feel  how  wholly  in- 
competent they  are  to  master  or  even  to  comprehend 
the  thing  they  fear.     They  hate  and  dread  the  very 
name  of  Science.    They  would  really,  literally,  silence 
its  investigations  if  they  could.     As  the  best  thing 
which  they  can  do,  they  are  very  apt  to  devise  or  to 
adopt   some   exceedingly  fantastic   and    exacirerated 
form  either  of  church  government,  or  of  ritual,  or  of 
doctrine,  which  they  clothe  with  artificial  sacredness, 
and    then  set  it  up  to  keep  the  advancing   monster 
back,  as  they  said  that  the  Chinese  piled  their  most 
sacred  crockery  upon  the  track  to  stop  the  progress 
of  the  first  locomotive  that  came  thundering  throuo-h 
their  land.     All  fanaticism  is  closely  bound  to  fear. 
These  are  the  dispositions  with  which  some  minis- 
ters meet  the  spirit  of  the  day.     These  are  the  vari- 
ous classes.     Among  these  classes  comes   some  new 
minister,  and  stands  and  says.  To  which  shall  I  be- 
long ?     Is  there  not   something  better  than  either? 
Indeed  there  is.     It  is  possible  for  you  and  me,  tak- 
ing the  facts  of  the  spiritual  life,  to  declare  tliem  with 
AS  true  a  certainty  as  any  preacher  ever  did,  in  what 
men  call  the  "  ages  of  faith."     They  are  as  true  to- 
day as  they  ever  were.     Men  are    as    ready  to  feel 


228  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

their  truth.  The  spiritual  nature  of  man,  with  all 
Its  needs,  is  just  as  real  a  thing,  and  Christ  is  just 
as  truly  and  richly  its  satisfaction.  To  speak  to  it 
and  offer  Him  is  your  privilege  and  mine.  And  yet 
not  to  be  unregardful  of  what  men  are  thinking  by 
our  side,  to  watch  it,  so  far  as  we  may  to  understand 
it  all,  but  alwaj'^s  to  watch  it  with  a  desire  to  see,  not 
what  it  will  say  to  overthrow,  but  what  it  will  say  to 
strengthen  and  enlarge  the  truth  we  preach  ;  to  watch 
it  with  a  feeling  that  it  may  modify  our  conception 
and  statement  of  the  truth,  but  with  no  fear  at  all 
that  it  ever  can  destroy  the  truth  itself  ;  this  does 
seem  to  me  to  be  the  temper  for  the  preacher  of  to- 
day. Our  truth  stands  on  its  own  evidence,  but  it 
has  its  connections  with  all  the  truth  that  men  are 
learning  so  wonderfully  on  every  side.  To  listen  to 
what  they  learn,  not  that  we  may  see  whether  our 
truth  of  the  soul  and  of  God  is  true,  but  that  we  may 
come  to  truer  and  larger  ways  of  apprehending  it, 
this  is  our  place.  If  we  can  take  this  place,  it  will 
give  us  both  firmness  and  freedom  ;  it  will  free  us 
alike  from  the  uselessness  of  doubt  and  the  useless- 
Qess  of  bigotr3\ 

I  seem  to  see  strange  panic  in  the  faces  of  the  min- 
isteis  of  to-day.  I  have  seen  a  multitude  of  preach- 
ers gathered  together  to  listen  to  one  who  expounded 
scientific  theories  upon  the  i-eligious  side,  and  making 
the  hall  ring  with  vociferous  applause  of  statements 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  229 

which  might  be  true  or  not,  but  certainly  whose  truth 
they  had  not  examined,  and  in  which  it  certainly  was 
not  the  truth  but  the  tendency  to  help  their  side  of 
the  argument  that  the}'  applauded.  I  think  that 
that  is  not  a  pleasant  sight  for  any  one  to  see  who 
really  cares  for  the  dignity  and  purity  of  his  profes- 
sion. 

The  preacher  must  mainly  rely  upon  the  strength 
of  what  he  does  believe,  and  not  upon  the  weakness 
of  what  he  does  not  believe.  It  must  be  the  power 
of  spirituality,  and  not  the  feebleness  of  materialism 
that  makes  him  strong.  No  man  conquers,  no  true 
man  tries  to  conquer  merely  by  the  powerlessness  of 
his  adversary.  I  think  the  scene  which  I  just  de- 
scribed was  pi'incipally  melancholy,  because  it  sug- 
gested a  lack  of  faith  among  the  ministers  themselves. 
And  one  feared  that  that  was  connected  with  the  ob- 
stinate hold  upon  some  untenable  excrescences  upon 
their  faith  which  they  chose  to  consider  part  of  the 
substance  of  their  faith  itself.  So  bigotry  and  cow- 
ardice go  together  always. 

But  after  all,  in  days  like  these,  one  often  finds 
himself  falling  back  upon  the  simplest  truths  con- 
cerning the  whole  matter  of  belief.  If  there  be  dis- 
proof or  modification  of  what  we  Christians  hold,  the 
sooner  it  can  be  made  known  to  us  the  better.  We 
are  Christians  at  all,  if  we  are  Christians  worthily, 
because  we  are  first  lovers  of  the  truth.     And  if  oui 


230  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

truth  is  wholly  true,  it  is  God's  before  it  is  ours,  and 
we  may  at  least  trust  Him  with  some  part  of  its  care. 
We  are  so  apt  to  leave  Him  out. 

And  there  is  one  strong  feeling  that  comes  out  of 
the  extravagant  unbelief  of  our  time,  which  has  in  it 
an  element  of  reassurance.  The  preacher  and  pastor 
sees  that  in  human  nature  which  assures  him  of  the 
essential  religiousness  of  man.  He  comes  to  a  com- 
plete conviction  that  only  a  religion  can  overthrow  and 
supplant  a  religion.  Man,  wholly  unreligious,  is  not 
even  conceivable  to  him.  And  so,  however  he  may 
fear  for  single  souls,  the  very  absoluteness  of  much  of 
the  denial  of  the  time  seems  to  offer  security  for  the 
permanence  of  faith. 

But  the  main  thing  is  to  know  our  own  ground  as 
spiritual  men,  and  stand  on  its  assured  and  tested 
strength.  And  that  strength  can  be  tested  only  by 
our  own  experience ;  and  so  once  more  we  come  I'ound 
to  our  old  first  truth,  that  the  man  is  behind  the  min- 
istry, that  what  is  in  the  sermon  must  be  in  the 
preacher  first. 

Hcn'e  must  come  what  useful  work  we  can  do  for 
those  who  are  bewildered  and  faithless  in  these  trying 
times.  If  you  are  going  to  help  men  who  are  ma- 
terialists, it  will  not  probably  be  by  a  scientific  dis- 
proof of  materialism.  It  will  be  by  a  strong  live 
offer  of  spiritual  realities.  It  is  not  what  the  minis- 
ter knows  of  science,  but  how  he  grasps  and  presents 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  231 

liis  spiritual  verities,  that  makes  him  strong.  AEany 
ignorant  ministers  meet  tlie  difficulties  of  men  far 
wiser  than  themselves.  I  may  know  nothing  of  spec- 
ulative atheism.     It  is  how  I  know  God  that  tells. 

I  do  not  disparage  controversy.  Theology  must  be 
prepared  to  maintain  her  ground  against  all  comers. 
If  she  loses  her  power  of  attack  and  defense,  she  will 
lose  her  life,  as  they  used  to  say  that  when  the  bee 
parted  with  his  sting  he  parted  with  his  industry  and 
spirit.  Only  not  every  minister  is  made  for  a  contro- 
versialist, and  the  pulpit  is  not  made  for  contro- 
versy. The  pulpit  must  be  positive,  telling  its  mes- 
sage, trusting  to  the  power  of  that  message,  expecting 
to  see  it  blend  into  harmony  with  all  the  other  truth 
that  fills  the  world  ;  and  the  preacher,  whatever  else 
he  may  be  elsewhere,  in  the  pulpit  must  be  positive 
too,  uttering  truth  far  more  than  denying  error. 
There  is  nothing  that  could  do  more  harm  to  Chris- 
tianity to-day  than  for  the  multitude  of  preachers  to 
turn  from  preaching  Christ  whom  they  do  under- 
stand, to  the  discussion  of  scientific  'questions  which 
they  do  not  understand.  Hear  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter.  Preach  positively  what  you  believe. 
Never  preach  what  you  do  not  believe,  or  deny  what 
you  do  believe.  Rejoice  in  the  privilege  of  declaring 
God.  Let  your  people  frankly  understand,  while  you 
preach,  that  there  is  raWch  you  do  not  know,  and  that 
50th  you  and  they  are  waiting  for  completer  light. 


232  LECTURES   ON   PIli: ACHING. 

I  must  iiDt  linger  longer  on  this  topic.  May  G(»cl 
help  you,  as  you  meet  it  constantly,  to  be  wise  and 
true. 

Another  of  the  questions  which  belong  to  this  time 
of  ours  in  some  peculiar  ways  is  the  question  of  tol- 
eration, —  the  relation  of  truth  to  partial  truth  and 
error.  This  again,  like  every  deep  pervading  ques- 
tion, has  its  form  for  the  learned  and  for  the  un- 
learned. To  the  scholar  it  comes  with  the  specula- 
tions, for  which  the  enlarged,  acquaintance  with  other 
lp,nds  and  times  has  furnished  such  abundant  food, 
pbout  comparative  religion.  To  the  unscholarly  it 
offers  itself  in  the  prevailing  disposition  to  exalt  con- 
duct above  belief,  and  ask  not  what  views  a  man 
holds,  but  what  sort  of  life  he  lives.  In  both  these 
cases  the  tendency  of  our  time  is  no  doubt  towai'd 
tolerance.  The  scholar  and  the  ignorant  man  alike 
are  both  content  that  their  m.'ighbors  should  think 
differently  from  them  about  religion.  The  very  de- 
sire for  the  stake  has  died  away.  We  look  back  to 
the  sixteenth  aiid  seventeenth  century  and  wonder  at 
the  enormities  of  bigotry.  We  are  all  thankful  for 
the  progress ;  but  often  as  we  read  the  books  of  the 
time,  often  as  we    talk  with  our  friends,  there  is  a 

misfrivin<T  which  intrudes.     How  much  of  this  tolera- 
te        o 

tion  is  indifference?  How  many  of  these  people  that 
are  kindly  to  their  neighbors'  faiths  are  careless  about 
kheir  own?     How  much   )f  the  difference  between  us 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  233 

and  the  zealots  of  the  seventeenth  century  has  como 
from  our  weakened  hold  on  truth  ?  They  believed 
with  all  their  hearts,  and  were  intolerant ;  we  h;i.vo 
grown  tolerant,  but  then  we  do  not  believe  as  they 
believed.  We  must  realize  their  intensity  before  we 
presume  to  sit  in  judgment  on  their  intolerance.  S(^ 
often  we  are  only  trying  to  be  mutually  harmless. 
We  are  like  steamers  lying  in  the  fog  and  whistling, 
that  we  may  not  run  into  others  nor  they  into  us. 
It  is  safe,  but  commerce  makes  no  great  progress 
thereby,  and  it  shows  no  great  skill  in  navigation. 
And  then  there  comes  the  picture  of  a  higher  state 
than  either  the  seventeenth  or  nineteenth  century 
has  reached.  We  see  that  here,  as  everywhere,  man- 
kind has  been  advancing  in  a  halting  and  awkward 
way,  first  dragging  one  side  forward,  and  only  gradu- 
ally dragging  the  other  side  along  to  meet  it.  There 
was  a  time  when  men  were  standing  with  their  love 
of  truth  in  advance  of  their  love  of  personal  liberty. 
We  see  that  we  are  standing  now  with  our  love  of 
personal  liberty  in  advance  of  our  love  for  truth.  We 
anticipate  a  time  when  the  love  of  truth  shall  have 
come  up  to  our  love  of  liberty,  and  men  shall  be  cor^ 
dially  tolerant  and  earnest  believers  both  at  once. 
When  that  comes  it  will  be  a  new  thing  in  the  world. 
It  has  been  seen  in  beautiful  or  splendid  individu- 
als scattered  all  through  the  ages,  but  there  has  been 
10  age  in  which  the  mass  of  thinkers  were  at  once 


23 i  LECTURES   OX   J'nKACHING. 

ijtrong  in  positive  belief,  and  tolerant  of  difference  Oj 
opinion. 

Now  it  is  certainly  the  minister's  duty  to  inculcate 
positive  belief.  We  rejoice  that  it  has  also  been  recog- 
nized as  the  minister's  duty  to  foster  charity  and  tol- 
erance. In  the  minister,  then,  would  seem  to  rest  the 
hope  of  that  better  time  to  come  when  both  of  these 
together  are  to  bless  the  world.  As  he  goes  aSout 
among  his  people  he  is  perpetually  saddened  by  their 
unnatural  divorce.  He  hears  some  member  of  his 
church  talk  about  truth.  He  listens  to  clear  state- 
ments of  the  Gospel ;  wise,  sound  discriminations  ; 
true  scriptural  explanations  of  the  mysteries  of  God 
and  man  and  grace.  And  all  uttered  with  a  deep 
fervor,  which  shows  how  the  man  loves  the  truth  he 
knows.  The  preacher  says,  "  What  clearness  ! " 
"  What  faith  !  "  and  rejoices  over  his  disciple.  And 
just  then  some  stray  word  drops  from  the  glowing 
lips  which  shows  with  what  a  strangeness,  amounting 
almost  to  antipathy,  this  believer  looks  upon  other 
people  who  hold  truth  differentl}'  from  himself;  with 
what  a  sense  of  narroAV  and  exclusive  privilege  he 
treasures  liis  orthodox  belief.  Or,  just  the  opposite. 
Some  hearer  of  your  preaching  delights  you  with  his 
ardent  charity  for  all  religions,  until  you  find  that  he 
has  no  real  religion  of  his  own.  He  upbraids  the 
bigot  without  ever  having  dreamed  of  the  intense  be- 
lief which  has  made  the  bigot  what  lie  is.     In  eitbei 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  235 

ease  there  is  a  disappointment  in  tlie  result  of  your 
work  as  it  appears  in  these  two  men.  Belief  and 
charity  are  not  yet  in  their  true  association.  Mercy 
and  truth  have  not  yet  met  together.  And  you  set 
youi'self,  as  you  walk  homo  from  your  two  parish  calls, 
to  think  what  you  can  do  to  bring  about  their  union. 
What  the  minister  can  really  do  is  this.  I  give  it 
ill  no  special  rules.  I  know  none.  If  I  did,  I  should 
not  think  it  worth  my  while  or  yours  to  come  here 
and  repeat  the  little  methods  of  my  working  which 
would  not  help  you.  I  only  give  here,  as  I  have 
tried  to  all  along,  the  principles  for  which  the  grace 
of  God  and  your  good  sense,  if  you  have  both,  will 
find  for  you  the  applications.  The  preacher  can, 
first  always  insist  on  looking  and  on  making  his  peo- 
ple look  on  doctrines  not  as  ends  but  means ;  and 
so,  if  other  men  less  perfectly  reach  the  same  ends 
by  means  of  other  doctrines,  he  will  be  able  to  re- 
joice in  their  attainment  of  the  end  without  doing 
dishonor  to  or  valuing  one  whit  the  less  the  truth 
which  as  it  seems  to  him  leads  much  more  directly 
and  fully  to  the  great  attainment.  "  Master,"  said 
John,  "  we  saw  one  casting  out  devils  in  th}^  name, 
and  we  forbade  him  because  he  foUoweth  not  with 
us."  And  Jesus  said,  "  Forbid  him  not,  for  there  is 
no  man  which  shall  do  a  miracle  in  my  name"  that 
can  lightly  speak  evil  of  me.  For  he  that  is  not 
against  us  is  on  our  part."     I  suppose  the  day  is  past 


£B6  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

when  people  strengthened  their  sense  of  tlie  impDr- 
tance  of  the  Gospel  and  of  their  privilege  in  hearing 
it,  and  of  their  duty  to  carry  it  to  the  heathen,  by 
assertino:  that  no  heathen  could  be  saved  who  had  not 
heard  it.  But  something  of  the  same  s[)irit  lingers 
Btill  at  home.  The  grosser  forms  of  an  error  will 
often  disappear  before  its  milder  ones.  And  many 
men,  many  ministers,  are  apt  to  emphasize  the  value 
of  the  truth  to  themselves  by  asserting  or  at  least 
implying  consequences  which  they  do  not  really  think 
would  follow  on  its  rejection  by  their  neighbors.  The 
abandonment  of  such  a  way  of  thinking  and  talking 
would  be  a  great  step  forward  toward  the  desired 
union  of  belief  and  charity. 

'V  And  again  the  preacher  may  industriously  and  dis- 
criminatingly set  himself  to  discern  what  there  is 
good  in  the  heart  of  the  system  that  he  tolerates,  and,, 
tolerating  it  for  that  good.,  may  so  keep  his  absolute 
standards  and  his  love  for  his  own  truth  unimpaired. 
The  weakness  of  a  large  part  of  our  toleiance  for 
other  systems  than  our  own  is  that  it  is  not  discrimi- 
nating. It  is  a  mere  sentiment.  It  thinks  that  it 
is  narr')W  not  to  tolerate,  and  so  it  says,  "  Come  now 
and  let  us  tolerate  ;  "  but  it  never  dissects  out  that 
Boul  of  goodness  in  things  evil  or  only  half  good 
^vhich  should  make  it  possible  to  tolerate  them  cor- 
dially and  be  glad  of  their  existence;  and  so  while 
It  wastes  its  cheap  and  unmeaning   compliments  upon 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR   OUR   AGE.  237 

them,  it  often  has  no  real  sympathy  with  them,  and 
either  despises  or  hates  them  underneath  its  compli- 
ments. This  is  the  kind  of  tolerance  that  haunts 
the  anniversary  platforms  where  sects  are  met  to 
gether,  where  men  seem  to  have  forgotten  that  thero 
are  any  differences  between  them,  and  from  which 
they  go  back  to  their  pulpits  without  a  perceptible 
mitigation  in  the  blindness  with  which  they  misap- 
prehend the  whole  position  of  their  neighbor  who  is 
preaching  in  the  next  street  to  them.  Toleration  as 
a  mere  fashion  and  sentiment  is  very  feeble.  It  must 
study  and  appreciate  that  which  is  good  in  what  it 
tolerates.  To  see  the  positive  truths  that  underlie 
the  Roman  Catholic  errors,  that  is  the  .only  way  to 
be  cordially  tolerant  of  Romanism,  and  yet  keep 
clearly  and  strongly  one's  own  Protestant  belief. 

It  is  possible  for  earnest  belief  to  be  united  with 
ardent  charity,  and  it  is  for  us  who  preach  the  Gos- 
pel of  Christ  to  show  the  possibility  in  all  our  life 
and  preaching.  Value  the  ends  of  life  more  than  its 
means,  watch  ever  for  the  soul  of  good  in  things  evil, 
ind  the  soul  of  truth  in  things  false,  and  beside  the 
richer  influence  that  will  flow  out  from  your  life  on  all 
to  whom  you  minister,  you  will  do  something  to  help 
the  solution  of  that  unsolved  problem  of  the  humnn 
mind  and  heart,  the  reconciliation  of  hearty  tolerance 
rith  strong  positive  belief. 

I  have  been  speaking  of  some  of  the  intellectual 


238  .  LECTURES   ON  PREACIUNG. 

chanicteristics  of  our  time  wliich  the  preacher  nnisl 
encounter.  They  are  very  prominent.  But  there  are 
other  characteristics  of  a  different  sort  that  force 
themselves  upon  us  ahnost  as  much.  We  talk  about 
the  scientific  character  of  our  age.  We  think  of  it 
as  wholly  given  up  to  the  search  after  knowledge. 
But  after  all  there  is  a  vast  preponderance  of  the  ac- 
ti\'ity  of  our  time  wliich  is  in  no  simse  scientific. 
The  commercial  and  social  and  political  movementa 
which  go  on  about  us  cannot  be  said,  I  think,  to  have 
any  more  of  the  scientific  spirit,  to  show  any  more 
tendency  to  revert  to  facts  and  trust  to  established 
principles,  than  those  same  movements  have  always 
manifested.  The  trouble  with  these  great  continuous 
and  universal  interests  of  life  no  doubt  has  its  con- 
nections wdth  the  danger  which  besets  the  study  of 
science.  What  we  have  to  fear  is  the  magnifying 
of  second  causes  to  the  forgetfulness  of  the  first  cause 
and  the  final  cause  of  things.  We  need  to  remember 
as  we  preach  with  what  enormous  urgency  this  dan- 
ger is  pressing  upon  the  lives  of  the  men  and  women 
to  whom  our  preaching  is  addressed.  The  men  and 
women  are  living  in  the  midst  of  the  intense  but  * 
Buperficial  excitement  which  comes  of  the  unnatural 
and  exclusive  vividness  of  second  causes.  It  seems  to 
the  business  man  as  if  Wealth  were  the  king  of  every- 
thing ;  as  if  it  made  reputation,  made  happiness,  al- 
tnost  made  character.     It  seems  to  the  man  or  woman 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  239 

Df  society  as  if  Fashion,  in  some  snpi*eine  reserv^e  of 
queenship  where  she  sits  and  whence  her  undisputed 
mandates  come,  were  the  supreme  arbiter  of  destiny. 
It  is  the  frankness  with  which  men  own  that  their 
views  of  the  forces  which  govern  things  stops  with 
these  immediate  causes,  wealth  and  fashion  and  tlie 
pleasure  of  the  senses,  that  appals  us  now.  They  do 
not  even  go  through  the  form  of  recognizing  some 
spiritual  force  farther  back.  "  Alas,  there  are  no 
more  hypocrites  now,"  cried  the  Abbd  Poulle  in 
France  in  the  last  century.  And  it  was  indeed  a 
symptom.  As  humanity  is  constituted,  when  men 
no  longer  give  themselves  the  trouble  to  make  an  im- 
itation, it  proves  how  little  the  reality  is  honored  ; 
and  the  very  carelessness  of  men  about  affecting  any 
thought  of  higher  causes  is  aii  indication  of  liow  the 
lower  causes  have  absorbed  the  attention  and  are  try- 
ing to  satisfy  the  needs  of  men. 

This  is  the  world  to  which  we  liave  to  bring  the 
Gospel,  the  story  that  begins  with  "  God  created  the 
heaven  and  the  earth,"  and  goes  on  with  the  record 
of  God's  power  and  love  until  it  comes  to  the  proph- 
ecy of  the  spiritual  Judgment  Day.  What  can  we 
do  to  get  that  story  of  the  one  first  cause  home  to  the 
aeart  of  this  eager,  feverish  age  worshipping  in  its 
Pantheon  of  second  causes  ?  First,  O  my  brothers 
who  are  to  be  pastors  of  the  Church,  we  can  take 
mitchful  care  that  the  Church  herself  is  true  to  hei 


.2-10  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

belief  in  God  as  the  source  of  all  power.  One  of  the 
most  terrible  signs  of  how  t!ie  spirit  of  sordidness  has 
filled  the  world  is  the  lamentable  extent  to  whicli  it 
has  pervaded  the  Church.  The  Church  is  constantly 
found  trusting  in  second  causes  as  if  she  knew  of  no 
first  cause.  She  elaborates  her  machineries  as  if  the 
power  lay  in  them.  She  goes,  cap  in  hand,  to  rich 
men's  doors,  and  flatters  them  and  dares  not  tell 
them  of  their  sins  because  she  wants  their  money. 
She  lets  her  officers  conduct  her  aftairs  with  all  the 
arts  of  a  transaction  on  the  street  or  an  intrigue  in 
politics,  or  only  shows  her  difference  of  standards  and 
freedom  from  responsibility  by  some  advantage  taken 
which  not  even  the  conscience  of  the  exchange  or  of 
the  caucus  would  allow.  She  degrades  the  dignity  of 
her  grand  commission  by  puerile  devices  for  raising 
money  and  frantic  efforts  to  keep  herself  before  the  . 
public  whicli  would  be  fit  only  for  the  sordid  ambi- 
tions of  a  circus  troupe.  You  must  cast  all  that  out 
of  the  churcli  with  which  you  have  to  do,  or  you  will 
make  its  pulpit  perfectly  powerless  to  speak  of  God 
to  our  wealth-ridden  and  pleasure-loving  time.  You 
must  show  first  that  His  Church  believes  in  Him  and 
trusts  Hiui  and  is  satisfied  in  Him,  or  yow  will  cr}  in 
vain  to  men  to  come  to  Him.  To  do  this,  you  must 
oot  only  cast  out  at  your  doors  the  disreputable  tin- 
Bel  of  church  life  of  which  I  have  been  speaking.  You 
must  believe  in   man  as  tiie  child  of  God  enough  t( 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  241 

preach  to  him  at  once  the  highest  spiritual  truth 
about  his  Father.  Many  a  well-meaning  preacher  ia 
all  wrong  here,  I  think.  He  says,  "  You  must  take 
men  as  you  find  them.  You  must  speak  to  such  fac- 
ulties and  perceptions  as  are  awake  in  them."  And 
so  because  he  sees  the  economical  perceptions  very 
acute  in  our  commercial  time,  he  preaches  the  econ- 
omy of  goodness.  He  shows  men  how  holiness  will 
pay.  He  knows  there  is  a  higher  truth,  but  he  can- 
not trust  men  to  hear  it.  He  hopes  to  lead  them  on 
to  it  by  and  by.  Ah,  that  is  all  wrong.  There  is  in 
every  man's  heart,  if  you  could  only  trust  it,  a  power 
of  appreciating  genuine  spiritual  truth  ;  of  being 
moved  into  unselfish  gratitude  by  the  love  of  God. 
Continually  he  who  trusts  it  finds  it  there.  A  hun- 
dred men  stand  like  the  Spanish  magnates  on  the 
shore  and  say,  "  You  must  not  venture  far  away. 
There  is  no  land  beyond.  Stay  here  and  develop 
what  we  have."  One  brave  and  trustful  man  like 
Columbus  believes  that  the  complete  world  is  com- 
plete, and  sails  for  a  fair  land  beyond  the  sea  and 
finds  it.  The  minister  who  succeeds  is  the  minister 
who  in  the  midst  of  a  sordid  age  trusts  the  heart  of 
man  who  is  the  child  of  God,  and  knows  that  it  is 
not  all  sordid,  and  boldly  speaks  to  it  of  God  his 
Father  as  if  he  expected  it  to  answer.  And  it  does 
answer ;  and  other  preachers  who  have  not  believed 
In  man,  and  have  talked  to  him  in  low  planes  and 

16 


242  LECTURES   OX   PREACIIIXG. 

preached  to  him  half  gospels  which  they  thought 
were  all  that  he  could  staud,  look  on  and  wonder  at 
their  brother-preacher's  unaccountable  success.  There 
have  always  been  illustrations  of  this.  There  never 
were  more  striking  ones  than  in  our  time.  With  all 
the  sordidness  of  our  time,  the  preachers  that  have 
been  the  most  powerful  have  been  the  most  spiritual. 
His  theology  has  something  of  the  taint  of  mercena- 
riness  about  it,  but  of  all  the  great  revivalists  I  do 
not  know  where  we  shall  find  any  one  who  has 
preached  more  constantly  to  the  good  that  there  is  in 
man  and  assumed  in  all  men  a  power  of  spiritual  ac- 
tion than  Mr.  Moody.  There  is  nothing  liner  than 
to  see  a  soul,  which  amazes  the  men  in  whom  it  rises, 
rise  up  in  men,  when  he  who  trusts  it  to  answer  to  the 
highest  call  speaks  to  it  of  the  love  of  God.  In  all 
your  pi'eaching  echo  the  ministry  of  Jesus,  who  spuke. 
to  the  lowest  and  most  sensual  people  directly  of  the 
everlasting  love,  and  by  the  trust  He  had  in  them 
brought  them  to  His  Father. 

I  do  not  think  that  one  could  rightly  suggest  the 
«;haracteristics  of  our  time  which  a  minister  encoun- 
ters without  naming  a  tendency  to  sentimentalness 
which  shows  itself  in  a  great  deal  of  our  religion,  and 
which,  both  directly  and  indirectly,  does  our  work 
great  harm.  It  is  connected  with  the  other  features 
of  the  time,  with  the  prevalence  of  doubt  and  unbe- 
lief.    It  is  most  natural  that  when  a  multitude  of  meij 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  2-1;] 

have  more  or  les3  deliberately  taken  up  the  idea  that 
the  foundations  of  faith  are  shaken,  wheii  they  are 
ifraid  to  say  that  they  hold  the  truths  of  religion  to 
be  literally  and  absolutely  true,  when  even  the  au- 
thority of  religion  as  the  lord  of  morality  is  dis- 
turbed, and  men  are  looking  somewhere  else  than  to 
God  for  1^  constant  reason  why  they  should  do  right, 
and  when  yet,  with  all  this,  the  impulses  of  rever- 
ence and  worship  remain  strong,  it  is  inevitable  then 
that  a  certain  religion  of  sentiment  should  grow  up, 
of  which  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  it  believes, 
but  which  delights  in  glowing  and  vague  utterances  of 
feeling.  No  one  can  read  our  hymns,  whether  they 
be  of  the  rudest  revival  sort  or  the  translated  mediae- 
valisms  of  ritualism,  without  feeling  what  I  mean. 
They  are  very  beautiful  often,  but,  compared  with  the 
hymns  that  our  fathers  sang,  they  are  weak.  They 
lack  thought,  and  no  religion  that  does  not  think  is 
strong.  It  may  be  in  reaction  from  t>he  way  in  which 
many  of  the  old  hymns  were  made  to  labor  witli  a 
process  of  reasoning  tliat  struggled  on  most  unlyri- 
cally  from  verse  to  verse,  that  the  favorite  hymn  of 
to-day  discards  connected  thought  and  seems  to  try 
')nly  to  utter  moods  of  mystic  feeling,  or  to  depict 
some  scene  in  whicli  the  spiritual  parable  is  apt  to  be 
lost  in  the  brightness  of  the  sensuous  imagery.  I 
*;hink  that  the  same  thing  is  true  of  prayers.  A 
orayer  must  have  thought  in  it.     The  thought  may 


244  LECTURES   ON  PREACH  I XG. 

ovo  Durden  it  so  that  its  w'ngs  of  devotion  are  fas- 
tened down  to  its  sides  and  it  cannot  ascend.  Then 
it  is  no  prayer,  only  a  meditation  or  a  contemplation. 
But  to  take  the  thought  out  of  a  prayer  does  not  in- 
sure its  going  up  to  God.  It  may  be  too  light  as  well 
as  too  heavy  to  ascend.  I  saw  once  in  a  shop-window 
in  London  a  placard  which  simply  announced  "  Limp 
Prayers."  It  descri5ed,  I  believe,  a  kind  of  Prayer 
Book  in  a  certain  sort  of  binding  which  was  for  sale 
within  ;  but  it  brought  to  mind  many  a  prayer  to 
which  one  had  listened,  in  which  he  could  not  join, 
out  of  which  had  been  left  the  whole  backbone  of 
thought,  and  to  which  he  could  attach  none  of  his 
own  heart's  desires. 

I  know  that  there  have  always  been  sentimentalists 
in  religion.  Mj'sticism,  which  at  its  best  is  a  very  high 
and  thorough  action  of  the  whole  nature  in  apprehend- 
ing spiritual  truth,  is  always  degenerating  into  senti- 
mentalism.  But  it  is  dangerous  to-day  because  it  so 
frankly  claims  for  itself  that  it  is  religion.  Disown- 
ing doctrine  and  depreciating  law,  it  asserts  that  re- 
ligion belongs  to  feeling,  and  that  there  is  no  truth 
but  love.  You  will  meet  it  surely  in  3'our  first  parish 
at  the  very  door.  Some  of  the  sweetest  and  noblest 
natures  there  are  sure  to  be  full  of  it,  and  show  it  to 
vou  very  winningly.  Others  will  set  it  before  you  as 
more  weak  sc^lf-indulgence.  You  will  find  many  of 
tb)  strongest  brains  and  consciences  in  b)wn  separated 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  245 

entirely  from  the  church,  because  they  consider  it,  as 
they  would  say  if  they  spoke  their  whole  minds  out 
to  you,  to  be  the  very  shop  and  banquet  room  of  sen- 
timentalism.  You  cannot  ignoi'e  this  as  you  preach. 
You  cannot  help  struggling  against  its  influence  upon 
yourself.  The  hard  theology  is  bad.  The  soft  theol- 
ogy is  worse.  You  must  count  your  work  unsatis- 
factory unless  you  waken  men's  brains  and  stir  their 
sonsciences.  Let  them  see  clearly  that  you  value  no 
feeling  which  is  not  the  child  of  truth  and  the  father 
of  duty.  And  to  let  them  see  that  you  value  no 
other  feeling  j^ou  must  value  no  other  feeling  either 
in  yourself  or  them. 

It  is  natural  for  sentimentalism  and  scepticism  to 
go  together,  like  the  fever  and  the  chill,  and  the 
same  mixture  of  deeper  faith  and  more  conscientious 
duty  must  be  medicine  for  both. 

We  ministers  cannot  help  noting  with  interest 
among  the  symptoms  of  our  time  the  way  in  which 
the  preacher  himself  is  regarded.  To  remark  the 
changed  attitude  which  the  people  generally  hold  to- 
wards ministers  is  the  most  familiar  commonplace  ; 
to  mourn  over  it  as  a  sign  of  decadence  in  the  re- 
ligious spirit  is  the  habit  of  some  people.  But  the 
reasons  of  it  are  plain  enough  and  have  been  often 
pointed  out.  The  preacher  is  no  longer  the  manifest 
superior  of  other  men  in  Avit  and  wisdom.     That  def- 


246  LECTURES   OX  PREACHING. 

erence  \\hich  was  once  paid  to  the  minister's  office, 
upon  the  reasonable  presumption  that  the  man  who 
occupied  it  was  better  educated,  more  large  in  his 
ideas,  a  better  reasoner,  a  more  trustworthy  guide  iu 
all  the  various  affairs  of  life  than  other  men,  if  it  were 
paid  still  would  either  be  the  perpetuation  of  an  old 
habit,  or  would  be  paid  to  the  office  purely  for  itself 
without  any  presumption  at  all  about  the  man.  This 
latter  could  not  be  long  possible ;  no  dignity  of  office 
can  secure  men's  respect  for  itself  continuously  unless 
it  can  show  a  worthy  character  in  those  who  hold  it. 
I  am  glad  that  the  mere  forms  of  reverence  for  the 
preacher's  office  have  so  far  passed  away.  I  am  not 
making  a  virtue  of  necessity.  I  rejoice  at  it.  Noth- 
incr  could  be  worse  for  us  than  for  men  to  keep  tell- 
ing us  by  deferential  forms  that  we  are  the  wisest  of 
men  when  their  shelves  are  full  of  books  with  far 
wiser  words  in  them  than  the  best  that  we  can 
preach  ;  or  that  we  are  the  most  eloquent  of  men 
when  there  are  better  orators  by  the  score  on  every 
Bide  ;  or  that  we  are  the  best  of  men  when  we  know 
of  sainthoods  among  the  most  obscure  souls  before 
which  we  stand  asha,med.  No  manly  man  is  satis- 
fied with  any  ex-officio  estimate  of  his  character. 
Whether  it  makes  him  better  or  worse  than  he  is,  he 
cares  nothing  for  it.  And  so  the  nearer  that  minis- 
ters come  to  being  judged  like  other  men  just  tor 
!shat   they   are,   the  more  they  ought  to  rejoice,  the 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  247 

more  1  think  they  do  rejoice.  But  what  then  ?  Is 
the  minister's  sacred  office  nothing  ?  Does  not  his 
truth  gain  authority  and  his  example  urgency  from 
the  position  whei-e  he  stands  ?  Indeed  they  do.  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  best  privilege  which  can  be 
given  to  any  man  is  a  position  which  shall  stimulate 
him  to  his  best  and  which  shall  make  his  best  most 
effective.  And  that  is  just  what  is  given  to  the  min- 
ister. An  official  position  which  should  substitute 
some  other  power  for  the  best  powers  of  the  man 
himself,  and  should  make  him  seem  effective  beyond 
his  real  force,  would  be  an  injury  to  him  and  ulti- 
mately would  be  recognized  as  an  empty  sham  itself. 
I  quarrel  with  no  man  for  his  conscientious  belief 
about  the  high  and  separate  commission  of  the  Chris- 
tian ministry.  I  only  quarrel  with  the  man  who, 
resting  satisfied  with  what  he  holds  to  be  his  high 
commission,  is  not  eager  to  match  it  with  a  high 
character.  The  more  you  think  yourself  different 
from  other  men  because  you  are  a  minister,  the  more 
try  to  be  different  from  other  men  by  being  more 
fully  what  all  men  ought  to  be.  That  is  a  High 
Churchmanship  of  which  we  cannot  have  too  much. 

I  hold  then  that  the  Christian  ministry  has  still  in 
men's  esteem  all  that  is  essentially  valuable,  and  all 
ihat  it  is  really  good  for  it  to  have.  It  has  a  place 
of  utterance  more  powerful  and  sacred  than  any 
•jther  in  the  world.     Then  comes  the  question,  What 


248  LLCTURES   ON  PllEACHLSa. 

has  it  to  utter?  The  pedestal  is  still  there.  Men 
will  not  gather  "about  it  as  they  once  did  perhaps, 
without  regard  to  the  statue  that  stands  upon  it. 
But  if  a  truly  good  statue  stands  there  the  world  can 
Bee  it  as  it  could  if  it  stood  nowhere  else. 

There  ai'e  two  -grejit  faults  of  the  ministry  -wh'xh 
come,  one  of  them  from  ignoring,  the  other  from  re- 
belling against,  this  change  in  the  attitude  of  the 
minister  and  the  people  towards  each  other.  The 
first  is  the  perpetual  assertion  of  the  minister's 
authority  for  the  truth  which  he  teaches.  To  claim 
that  men  should  believe  what  we  teach  them  because 
we  teach  it  to  them  and  not  because  they  see  it  to  be 
true  is  to  assume  a  place  which  God  does  not  give 
tis  and  men  will  not  acknowledge  for  us.  Many  a 
Christian  minister  needs  to  be  sent  back  to  him  whom 
we  call  the  heathen  Socrates,  to  read  these  noble 
words  in  the  Phgedo — which  whole  <?ialogue,  by  the 
way,  is  itself  no  unworthy  pattern  of  the  best  quali- 
ties of  preaching.  "  You,  if  you  take  my  advice,  wiL 
think  little  about  Socrates,  bat  a  gres^^-  lUsal  about 
Truth." 

And  the  other  fault  is  the  constant  def»re  to  make 
|.eople  hear  us  who  seem  determined  to  forg(?t  us. 
This  is  the  fault  of  the  sensational  preaoM.'ng.  A 
large  part  of  what  is  called  sensational  preaching  is 
dimply  the  effort  of  a  man  who  has  no  faith  in  hia 
utfice  or  in  the  essential  power  of  truth  to  keep  h^'n 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR   OUR   AGE.  249 

self  before  people's  eyes  by  some  kind  of  intellectual 
fantasticalness.  It  is  a  pursuit  of  brightness  and  vi- 
vacity of  thouglit  for  its  own  sake,  which  seems  to 
come  from  a  certain  almost  desperate  determination  of 
the  sensational  minister  that  he  will  not  be  forgotten, 
I  think  there  is  a  great  deal  of  nervous  uneasiness  of 
mind  which  shows  a  shaken  confidence  in  one's  posi- 
tion. It  struggles  for  cleverness.  It  lives  by  mak- 
ing points.  It  is  fatal  to  that  justice  of  thought 
which  alone  in  the  long  run  commands  confidence 
and  carries  weight.  The  man  who  is  always  trying 
to  attract  attention  and  be  brilliant  counts  the  mere 
sober  effort  after  absolute  truth  and  justice  dull.  It 
is  more  tempting  to  be  clever  and  unjust  than  to  be 
serious  and  just.  Every  preacher  has  constantly  to 
make  his  choice  which  he  will  be.  It  does  not  be- 
long to  men,  like  angels,  to  be  "ever  bright  and 
fair  "  together.  And  the  anxious  desire  for  glitter  is 
one  of  the  signs  of  the  dislodgment  of  the  clerical 
position  in  our  time. 

There  is  a  possible  life  of  great  nobleness  and  use- 
fulness for  the  preacher  who,  frankly  recognizing  and 
cordially  accepting  the  attitude  towards  his  office 
which  he  finds  on  the  world's  jjart,  preaches  triith 
and  duty  on  their  own  intrinsic  authority,  and  wins 
personal  power  and  influence  because  he  does  not 
seek  them,  but  seeks  the  prevalence  of  righteousness 
And  the  salvation  of  men's  souls. 


/• 


250      LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

The  relation  of  our  time  to  the  Bible  is  another 
/  subject  which  must  interest  a  preacher  very  deeply. 
/  \/  The  Bible  is  the  authority  by  which  we  preach  ;  unci 
to  find  tlie  people  whom  our  preaching  interests  so 
largely  uninterested  in  and  ignorant  of  the  source 
from  which  our  truth  is  drawn,  must  awaken  some 
questions  as  to  whether  our  preaching  is  wholly 
right.  I  do  not  speak  now  of  the  prevalent  doubts 
about  the  Bible,  though  they  are  of  course  connected 
very  closely,  both  as  cause  and  eflPect,  with  men's 
ignorance  about  it.  I  speak  merely  of  the  fact  of 
that  undoubted  ignorance.  Who  is  there  among  our 
people  that  knows  the  Old  Testament  ?  Where  are 
the  people  that  in  any  real  sense  know  the  New  ? 

If  we  look  for  the  reasons  of  such  ignorance  about 
a  book  which  lies  on  everybody's  table,  and  whose 
name  is  on  everybody's  lips,  they  are  not  hard  to 
find.  First  there  is  in  our  time  a  great  reaction 
from  the  belief  that  men  once  had  in  the  saving 
power  of  the  Bible.  Men  who  have  read  a  book  not 
because  it  was  true  or  because  they  wanted  to  get  at 
its  lessons,  but  because  they  thought  it  was  safe  to 
read  it  and  unsafe  not  to  read  it,  just  as  soon  as 
the  notion  of  safety  is  loosened  from  it,  will  be  less 
ready  to  care  for  its  truth  and  to  feel  its  power  tha?i 
that  of  other  books.  This  is  human  nature  Tiie 
stronger  feeling  about  th(^  Bible  has  kept  down  the 
more    familiar    feeling    which    attaches    us    to    othoj 


THE   MINISTRY  FOR    OUR   AGE.  2ra 

books.  Another  reason  is,  of  course,  the  crowd  of 
other  books,  their  cheapness  and  their  apparent  press- 
ingness.  Even  the  man  who  know^s  that  the  Bible  is 
the  best  of  books,  will  read  the  last  new  treatise  on 
religion  instead  of  the  Bible,  because  he  knows  the 
Bible  belongs  to  all  ages,  and  can  never  pass  out  of 
date,  while  with  this  "  latest  publication  "  it  is  to- 
day or  ne  ,^er.  And  yet  another  reason  is  the  preva- 
lent disposition  to  consider  the  Bible  the  clergy's 
book.  We  wonder  at  the  pusillanimity  with  which 
the  people  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Romanists  of 
to-day  have  submitted  to  restrictions  on  the  reading 
of  the  Bible,  and  to  the  acceptance  of  whatever  ac- 
count of  it  their  preachers  chose  to  give.  The  real 
truth  is  that  they  like  this  state  of  things';  and  many 
of  our  Protestants  like  it  too,  and  of  their  own  free 
will  treat  the  Bible  so  exactly  as  the  Medieval 
Christian  was  compelled  to  treat  it  that  it  ought  not 
to  seem  strange.  And  another  reason  is,  that  the 
clergy  by  their  unreal  fantastic  treatment  of  the 
Bible  often  do  what  they  can  to  make  the  people 
think  that  it  is  indeed  unintelligible  except  to  one 
who  holds  a  very  complicated  key,  and  so  that  it  is 
not  for  the  like  of  them  to  touch  it.  This  is  the 
evil  of  all  unreal  exegesis.  It  throws  an  unreal  air 
*bout  the  book  of  God.  I  hea,rd  of  a  sermon  on  the 
first  verse  of  the  forty- first  psalm  which  declared  it  to 
Ue  a   statement  of   the    mission    of   Christ  and   the 


252  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

scheme  of  the  Atonement.  Imagine  a  believing  dis- 
ciple going  home  after  that  sermon  and  reading  hia 
Bible  with  the  slightest  hope  of  knowing  what 
it  meant !  And  another  reason  still  is  our  unbiblical 
preaching.  I  mean  our  preaching  about  all  topics 
with  various  degrees  of  wisdom  but  with  nothing 
which  would  suggest  that  what  we  give  men  is  only 
a  few  drops  out  of  a  spring  of  truth  and  life,  and  so 
would  send  them  eagerly  to  the  fountain  to  drink 
their  fill. 

Against  these  tendencies  to  make  the  Bible  unreal 
and  uninteresting  there  has  come  the  protest  of  the 
new  way  of  treating  it  and  the  new  books  about  it. 
I  know  the  danger  of  superficialness  which  attends 
the  realistic  treatment  of  the  Bible.  I  know  how  apt 
it  is  to  carry  the  mind  up  to  a  certain  point  of  ama- 
teur interest  and  leave  it  there.  Certainly  no  one 
can  praise  it  except  as  an  introduction  to  a  spiritujd 
richness  which  is  far  deeper  than  itself,  but  in  our 
day  it  is  something  to  be  very  glad  of  that  Milman 
and  Stanley,  and  Farrar  and  the  author  of  "Ecce 
Homo,"  in  literature,  and  Hohnan  Hunt  and  Bida,  in 
the  region  of  art,  have  made  the  outer  life  of  the 
Bible  live  anew,  and  by  sweeping  aside  the  mist  of 
unreality  that  hung  about  its  door  have  opened  the 
Mray  for  a  deeper  entrance  into  its  spirit  than  man 
has  yet  attaiued. 

There  is  need  of  every  special  effort  to  make  men 


THE  MINISTRY  FOR   OUR   AGE.  253 

know  the  Bible.  The  Bible  class,  the  expository  lect- 
ure, the  illustrative  picture,  none  of  them  can  do  too 
much.  But  there  is  yet  greater  need  that  you  and 
I  who  preach  should  let  the  people  see  that  we  are 
men  of  the  Bible,  that  we  know  its  letter  and  are 
possessed  by  its  spirit,  that  out  of  it  directly  comes 
the  support  of  our  own  rehgious  life  and  the  fcod 
which  we  offer  in  our  preaching. 

I  must  not  let  my  lecture  grow  any  longer.  I  have 
tried  to  point  out  to  you  some  of  the  peculiarities  of 
our  time  which  we  as  preachers  must  encounter.  I 
must  not  close  without  begging  you  not  to  be  ashamed 
or  afraid  of  the  age  you  live  in,  and  least  of  all  to 
talk  of  it  in  a  tone  of  weak  despair.  In  the  beginning 
of  the  last  century  many  men  talked  of  Christianity 
as  if  it  were  an  effete  superstition.  And  j'et  behold 
the  new  life  which  has  come  forth  since  from  that 
which  men  then  called  dead.  The  state  of  things 
which  then  existed  may  seem  to  be  renewed,  though 
it  is  not  possible  for  men  to  be  as  wholly  unbelieving 
in  the  nineteenth  century  as  they  were  in  the  eigh- 
teenth. But  out  of  what  men  now  call  a  slow  death 
I13W  life  will  come.  In  many  ways  we  can  see  clearly 
Ihat  it  is  not  death,  but  some  strange  change  and 
progress  of  the  methods  of  life  by  which  we  are  sur- 
rounded. To  be  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  the 
ige,  to  admire  everything  in  it  that  is  admirable,  tc 


254  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

rejoice  in  its  great  achievements,  to  see  the  beauty 
of  the  superb  material  structure  which  it  is  building 
for  the  better  spirituahty  which  is  to  come  to  dwell 
in  it,  to  love  to  trace  the  strange  nomadic  currents  of 
spiritual  desire  which  run,  often  grotesquely  or  fran- 
tically, through  its  tumultuous  life,  to  see  with  joy 
how  its  new  needs  bring  out  new  sides  of  helpfulness 
in  the  ever  helpful  Gospel  of  Christ,  this  is  the  true 
culture  of  a  preacher  for  our  time.  He  believes  in  it 
and  loves  it,  and  sees  its  great  strong  faults  against 
the  background  of  its  noble  qualities.  He  thankii 
God,  who  sent  him  here  to  work  ;  for  he  is  sure  that 
while  there  have  been  many  centuries  in  which  it 
was  easier,  there  has  been  none  in  which  it  was  more 
interesting  or  inspiring  for  a  man  to  preach. 


THE  VALUE  OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL. 


nnHERE  is  a  power  which  lies  at  the  centre  of  {.U 
success  in  preaching,  and  whose  influence  reaches 
out  to  the  circumference,  and  is  essential  everywhere. 
Without  its  presence  we  cannot  imagine  the  most 
brilliant  talents  making  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel  in 
the  fullest  sense.  Where  it  is  largely  present,  it  is 
wonderful  how  many  deficiencies  count  for  nothing. 
It  has  the  characteristics  which  belong  to  all  the  most 
essential  powers.  It  is  able  to  influence  the  whole 
life  as  one  general  and  pervading  motive  ;  and  it  can 
also  press  on  each  particular  action  with  peculiar 
force.  Under  its  compulsion  a  man  first  becomes  a 
preacher,  and  every  sermon  that  he  preaches  is  more 
or  less  consciously  shaped  by  its  pressure  ;  as  the 
whole  round  world  and  each  round  atom  are  shaped 
and  held  in  shape  by  the  same  laws.  Without  this 
power,  preaching  is  almost  sure  to  become  either  a 
struggle  of  ambition  or  a  burden  of  routine.  With 
it,  preaching  is  an  ever  fresh  delight.  The  power  is 
the  value  of  the  human  soul,  felt  by  the  preacher, 
and  inspiring  all  his  work  , 


256  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

The  power  of  that  motive  has  been  assumed  in 
all  that  I  have  said  to  you.  But  it  seems  to  me  to 
be  so  supremely  important ;  the  ministry  which  ig 
full  of  it  is  so  rich  ;  the  ministry  which  lacks  it  is  so 
poor,  that  I  determined,  when  I  undertook  the  duty 
which  I  complete  to-da}^  that  this  last  lecture  should 
be  given  to  a  serious  consideration  of  the  importance 
and  value  of  this  mainspring,  which  lies  coiled  up 
within  all  the  complicated  machinery  of  the  ministry, 
the  realized  value  of  the  human  soul. 

As  to  its  importance,  we  get  our  clearest  impres- 
sion if  we  look  at  the  earthly  ministry  of  Jesus. 
There  are  many  accounts  to  be  given  of  His  wondrous 
work.  People  may  say  many  ingenious  things  about 
it,  and  many  of  them  are  true.  But  we  are  sure  that 
he  has  put  his  hand  most  certainly  upon  the  central 
power  of  Christ's  ministry,  who  holds  up  before  us. 
the  intense  value  which  the  Saviour  always  set  upon 
the  souls  for  which  He  lived  and  died.  It  shines  in 
everything  He  says  and  does.  It  looks  out  from  His 
ej'^es  when  they  are  happiest  and  when  they  are  sad- 
dest. It  trembles  in  the  most  loving  consolations, 
and  thunders  in  the  most  passionate  rebukes  which 
come  from  His  lips.  It  is  the  inspiration  at  once  of 
His  pity  and  His  indignation.  And  it  has  made  the 
few  persons  on  whom  it  chanced  to  fall,  and  in  whoso 
histories  it  found  its  illustrations,  the  men  and  women 
who  represented  humanity  about  Him  in  Palestine  — 


THE.  VALUE   OF   THE  HUMAN  SOUL.      257 

Nicodemus,  Peter,  John,  the  Pharisees,  the  Mag- 
dalen, the  woman  of  Samaria,  and  all  the  rest  — 
himinous  forever  with  its  light.  That  power  still 
continues  wherever  the  same  value  of  the  human 
Boul  is  present.  If  we  could  see  how  precious  the 
human  soul  is  as  Christ  saw  it,  our  ministry  would 
approach  the  effectiveness  of  Christ's.  "  I  am  not 
convinced  by  what  you  say.  I  am  not  sure  that  I 
cannot  answer  every  one  of  your  arguments,"  said  a 
man  with  whom  a  preacher  had  been  pleading,  "but 
one  thing  which  I  confess  I  cannot  understand.  It 
puzzles  me,  and  makes  me  feel  a  power  in  what  you 
say.  It  is  why  you  should  care  enough  for  me  to 
take  all  this  trouble,  and  to  labor  with  me^  as  if  you 
eared  for  my  soul."  It  is  a  power  which  every  man 
must  feel.  It  Inspires  the  preacher  ;  and  his  hearers, 
catching  its  influence,  become  soft  and  ready  to  re- 
ceive the  truth.  It  is  strength  in  the  arm  which 
strikes,  and  tenderness  in  the  rock  which  receives 
the  blow. 

The  other  motives  of  the  minister's  work  seem  to 
me  to  stand  around  this  great  central  motive  as  the 
staff  officers  stand  around  a  general.  He  needs  them. 
They  execute  his  commands.  He  could  not  do  his 
work  without  them.  But  he  is  not  dependent  upon 
them  as  they  ai*e  upon  him  ;  any  one  of  them  might 
fall  away  and  he  could  still  fight  the  battle.  The 
power  of  the  battle  is  in  him.     If  he  falls,  the  cause 

33 


258  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

is  ruined.  So  stand  the  subordinate  motives  of  the 
ministry  around  the  commanding  motive,|the  realized 
vakie  of  the  human  soul.  They  are  the  motives 
which  I  have  had  occasion  to  dwell  on  one  by  one  in 
the  course  of  these  lectures.  They  are.  the  pleasure 
of  work,  the  mere  delight  in  the  exercise  of  powers 
which  is  natural  to  any  man  who  is  healthy  both  in 
body  and  mind ;  the  love  of  influence,  that  gratifica- 
tion in  feeling  our  life  touch  another  life  for  some 
good  result,  which  is  also  natural  and  healthy ;  the 
perception  of  order,  that  love  of  regulated  movement, 
of  the  rhythm  of  righteousness  in  the  lives  and  ways 
of  men,  which  in  its  higher  forms  is  noble,  though  in 
the  lower  it  degenerates  into  routine  ;  and  lastly  the 
pure  concern  for  truth,  the  pleasure  in  seeing  right 
ideas  take  the  place  of  wrong  ideas,  which  may  be 
quite  separate  from  any  regard  for  the  interest  of  the 
person  in  whom  the  change  takes  place.  These  are 
the  nobler  members  of  the  staff  of  the  great  general. 
There  are  more  ignoble  ones  who  volunteer  theii 
services  and  wear  something  like  his  uniform  and 
cannot  always  be  distinguished  from  his  true  ser- 
vants; such  as  emulation,  and  the  love  of  fame,  and 
the  pride  of  opinion,  and  the  enjoyment  of  congenial 
society.  I  will  not  dwell  on  those.  These  others  are 
the  real  staff  of  the  general.  But  when  we  look  at 
their  group,  how  the  commanding  motive  whom  they 
serve  t'^wers  up  far  above  them  alh     They  get  their 


THE    VALUE    OF  THE   HUMAN   SCUL.      259 

highest  dignity  from  serving  him.  For  in  Ins  service 
each  of  them,  which  is  abstract  in  itself,  comes  into 
actual  contact  with  man  ;  and  no  abstract  princi})Ie 
has  shown  its  full  power  or  given  its  full  pleasure 
until  it  has  opened  the  essential  relations  which  exist 
between  it  and  human  nature.  It  is  the  great  priv- 
ilege of  the  ministry  that  it  is  kept  in  constant  nec- 
essary contact  with  mankind.  Therein  lies  its  health- 
iness. Man  in  his  mystery  and  wonderfulness  is 
more  full  of  the  suggestion  of  God  than  either  ab- 
stract truth  or  physical  nature.  And  so  the  true 
preacher,  in  spite  of  his  imperfect  opportunities  for 
study,  in  spite  of  his  separation  from  the  beauty  of 
the  natural  world,  has  the  chance  to  know  more  of 
God  than  the  profoundest  speculative  philosophy  or 
the  most  exquisite  scenery  of  earth  could  reveal  to 
him. 

Let  me  try  then  to  point  out  to  you  what  some  of 
the  effects  will  be  in  a  man's  preaching  from  a  true 
sense  of  the  value  of  the  human  soul,  by  which  I 
mean  a  high  estimate  of  the  capacity  of  the  spiritual 
nature,  a  keen  and  constant  appreciation  of  the  attain- 
ments to  which  it  may  be  brought.  And  first  of  all 
it  helps  to  rescue  the  Gospel  which  we  preach  from 
a  sort  of  unnaturalness  and  incongruity  which  is  very 
apt  to  cling  to  it.  This  is,  I  think,  very  important. 
Consider  what  it  is  that  you  are  to  declare  week  after 
week,  to  the  men  and  women  who  come  to  hear  you. 


260  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

llie  mighty  truths  of  Incarnation  and  Atonement 
are  your  themes.  You  tell  them  of  the  birth  and 
life  and  death  of  Jesus  Christ.  You  picture  the 
adorable  love  and  the  mysterious  sacrifice  of  the 
Saviour.  And  you  bind  all  this  to  their  lives.  You 
tell  them  that  in  a  true  sense  all  this  was  certainly 
for  them.  I  do  not  know  what  you  are  made  of,  if 
sometimes,  as  you  preach,  there  does  not  come  into 
your  mind  a  thought  of  incongruity.  What  are  you, 
you  and  these  people  to  whom  you  preach,  that  for 
you  the  central  affection  of  the  universe  should  have 
been  stirred  ?  You  know  your  own  life.  You  know 
something  of  the  lives  they  live.  You  look  into  theii 
faces  as  you  preach  to  them.  Where  is  the  end 
worthy  of  all  this  ministry  of  almighty  grace  which 
you  have  been  describing?  Is  it  possible  that  all 
this  once  took  place  and,  by  the  operation  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  is  a  perpetual  power  in  the  world,  merely  that 
these  machine-lives  might  run  a  little  truer,  or  that 
a  series  of  rules  mighc  be  established  by  which  the 
current  workings  of  society  might  move  more  smooth 
ly  ?  That,  M'hich  men  sometimes  make  the  purpose 
of  it  all,  is  too  unworthy.  The  engine  is  too  coarse 
to  have  so  fine  a  fire  under  it.  You  must  see  some- 
thing deeper.  You  must  discern  in  all  these  men 
«nd  women  some  inherent  preciousness  for  which 
even  tlu;  marvel  of  the  Incarnation  and  the  agony  of 
L'al'ary  was  not  too  great,  or  it  is  impossible  that  you 


THE    VALUE   OF   THE  HUMAN  SOUL.      261 

should  keep  your  faith  in  those  stupendous  truths 
which  Bethlehem  and  Calvary  offer  to  us.  Some 
source  of  fire  from  which  these  dimmed  sparks  come, 
some  possible  renewal  of  the  fire  which  is  in  them 
still,  some  sight  of  the  education  througli  which  each 
soul  is  passing,  and  some  suggestion  of  the  special 
personal  perfectness  to  which  each  may  attain,  all 
this  must  brighten  before  you,  as  you  look  at  them ; 
and  then  the  truths  of  your  theology  shall  not  be 
thrown  into  confusion  nor  faded  into  unreality  by 
your  ministry  to  men.  The  best  thing  in  a  minister's 
life  is  the  action  of  his  works  and  his  faith  on  one 
another;  his  experience  of  the  deeper  value  of  the 
human  soul  making  the  wonders  of  his  faith  more 
credible,  and  the  truths  of  his  faith  always  revealing 
to  him  a  deeper  and  deeper  value  in  the  soul. 

I  think  that  nobody  can  preach  with  the  best 
power  who  is  not  possessed  with  a  sense  of  the  mys- 
teriousness  of  the  human  life  which  he  preaches  to. 
It  must  seem  to  him  capable  of  indefinite  enlarge- 
ment and  refinement.  He  must  see  it  in  each  new 
p?rson  as  something  original  and  new.  This  must 
be  something  which  belongs  to  his  whole  conception 
?f  man  as  the  child  of  God.  It  must  not  be  the  mere 
inspiration  of  his  whim,  attributed  in  great  richness 
to  some  lives  which  chance  to  take  his  fancy  but 
ignored  in  others.  He  must  see  it  in  all  men  simply 
us  men.     When  he  undertakes  to  lead  th  »m  he  must 


2fci2  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

feel  the  mystery  and  spontaneity  of  the  lives  that  ha 
takes  under  his  teaching.  He  must  be  a  careful  stu- 
dent of  the  characters  he  trains.  He  cannot  carry 
people  over  the  route  of  his  ministry  as  a  ferryman 
Carrie?  passengers  across  the  river,  always  running 
his  boat  in  the  same  line  and  never  even  asking  the 
names  of  the  people  whom  he  carries.  He  must 
count  himself  rather  like  the  tutor  of  a  family  of 
princes,  who,  with  careful  study  of  their  several  dis- 
positions, trains  the  royal  nature  of  each  for  the  spe- 
cial kingdom  over  which  he  is  to  rule. 

Here  is  where  the  preacher  and  the  poet  touch. 
Every  true  preacher  must  be  a  poet,  at  least  in  so  far 
as  to  see  behind  all  the  imperfections  of  men  a  certain 
ideal  manhood  from  wliich  they  have  never  separated, 
which  underlies  the  life  and  lends  its  value  to  the 
blurred  and  broken  character  of  every  one.  A  belief 
in  the  Incarnation,  in  the  divine  Son  of  Man  makes 
such  poets  of  us  all.  It  is  interesting  to  see  in  how 
many  ministers  the  hopefulness  of  this  ideal  poetic 
view  of  human  life  overcomes  the  tendencies  of  nat- 
ural temperament,  tlie  discouragement  of  poverty  and 
disease  and  the  disenchanting  influence  of  intercourse 
with  men,  and  keeps  ministers  the  most  liopeful  class 
of  men.  They  are  always  standing  where,  if  they 
will,  they  may  listen  for  the  bells  that  shall  "  ring  in 
the  Christ  that  is  to  be."  I  have  seen  ministers  try 
to  crush  back  this  nobl^j   ♦^endency  of  their  vocation 


THE    VALUE   OF   THE   HUMAN   SOUL.      263 

•ind  to  assume  a  cynicism  and  a  hopelessness  which 
they  did  not  feel,  so  that  other  men  might  not  call 
them  childish.  And  I  have  seen  men  of  the  world 
disappointed  when  they  came  to  such  ministers  and 
did  not  find  in  them  the  childlike  hope  and  trust 
that  they  expected,  but  only  false  and  despairing 
thoughts  of  human  nature  like  their  own  ;  as  if  the 
ice  came  up  to  the  fire  to  warm  itself,  and  found  the 
fire  ashamed  of  being  warm  and  trying  hai'd  to  make 
itself  as  cold  as  ice. 

I  might  dwell,  also,  on  this  value  of  the  human 
soul  for  its  own  sake,  as  constituting  the  constant  re- 
serve of  pleasure  in  the  ministry.  There  are  other 
pleasures  in  our  work,  as  I  have  recoiuited  to  you 
already  ;  but  they  are  all,  to  a  certain  extent,  de- 
pendent upon  circumstances.  A  parish  uproar  which 
reveals  the  bad  reality  of  life,  may  scatter  some  of 
them.  Poverty,  which  deprives  you  of  the  means  of 
culture,  and  takes  away  the  power  of  carrying  out 
your  plans,  may  rob  you  of  others.  But  the  mere 
pleasure  of  dealing  with  man  as  man,  as  a  being  val- 
uable in  himself,  for  this  no  peculiar  happiness  of 
circumstances  is  needed.  Wherever  men  are,  you 
may  have  it.  Nobody  but  Robinson  Crusoe  is  shut 
out  from  it,  and  even  to  him  the  ]\  ',an  Friday  is  sure 
to  come. 

And  herein  lies  the  real  fellowship  of  the  ministry. 
There    are    no    fellow-workers   who    come    so    close 


2Q4  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

together  as  fellow-workers  in  the  ministi-y  of  the 
Gospel  ;  and  their  companionship  is  closest  when 
they  most  deeply  know  this  truth  of  the  essential 
value  of  the  human  soul.  A  preacher  comes  to 
me  from  Africa,  or  from  some  church  of  another  do- 
nomination  in  the  next  street,  which  often  seems 
farther  off  than  Africa.  It  depends  upon  what  tho 
power  of  our  preaching  is,  how  near  we  come  to- 
gether. If  we  are  both  given  to  machineries,  each 
of  us  valuing  only  what  a  certain  sort  of  people  may 
become  under  the  peculiar  culture  of  the  denomina- 
tion which  he  represents,  then  wo  talk  together, 
however  pleasantly,  only  over  our  fences,  and  shake 
hands,  however  cordially,  only  through  the  slats.  If 
we  both  really  value  the  soul  of  man,  we  understand 
each  other  ;  the  different  methods  of  our  work  do 
not  keep  us  apart  but  bring  us  together,  for  they  are 
the  means  by  which  we  manifest  to  one  another  the 
deep  motive  which  is  the  power  of  both  our  lives. 
The  fences  are  turned  into  bridges.  Certainly,  Chris- 
tian union,  whenever  it  comes,  must  come  thus,  not 
by  compromise  and  the  adjustment  of  various  forms 
of  government  and  worship,  but  by  the  develop- 
ment in  all  preachers  of  all  kinds  of  that  value  for 
man  in  Christ  which  burrows  far  beneath  the  dif- 
ferences of  forms  and  flies  far  above  th'^m.  It 
may  be  given  to  some  people  in  these  days  to  take 
iirect  steps  toward   organic  Christian  union.     I  bid 


THE    VALUE    OF   THE   HUMAN  SOUL        265 

them  God  speed.  But  if  that  is  not  our  task  let  us 
know,  and  let  us  rejoice  in  knowing,  that  we  arc 
doing,  perhaps,  as  much  as  they  for  the  millenium, 
if,  in  ourselves  and  those  who  hear  us,  by  whatever 
partial  name  we  and  they  may  be  called,  we  are  do- 
mg  what  we  can  to  make  strong  that  sense  )f  the 
value  of  the  human  soul  which,  by  its  very  nature, 
is  universal,  and  cannot  be  partial.  Here  is  where 
the  zealous  partisan,  who  is  at  the  same  time  an 
earnest  Christian,  is  often  working  better  than  he 
knows.  He  is  like  a  jealous  farmer  who  prays  for 
rain  to  water  his  field  that  it  may  be  richer  than 
his  neighbor's  ;  but  the  heaven  is  too  broad  for  him, 
and  will  not  limit  its  bounty  by  the  intention  of  his 
prayer.  It  will  rain,  but  it  cannot  rain  between 
fences ;  and  so  his  selfish  prayer  brings  refreshment 
for  the  alien  acres  for  which  he  does  not  pray. 

And  as  this  power  in  the  ministry  lies  deepest,  so 
it  lasts  longest.  The  veteran  preacher,  I  think, 
keeps  the  enjoyment  and  tries  to  keep  the  practice  of 
his  work  later  in  life  than  the  veteran  in  almost  any 
ether  occupation.  That  always  seems  to  me  a  touch- 
uig  and  convincing  proof  of  the  excellence  of  our 
calling.  It  shows  better  and  better  as  it  grows 
older.  The  delightful  French  artist,  Millet,  used  to 
Bay  to  his  pupils  :  "  The  end  of  the  day  is  the 
proof  of  fi  picture,"  "  La  fin  du  jour,  c'est  I'^preuve 
d'uu  tableau."     He   meant    that    the    twilight   hour 


2(36  LECTURES   ON  P  HE  ACHING. 

wlien  there  is  not  light  enough  to  distinguish  detuiU 
is  the  most  favorable  time  to  judge  of  a  picture  as  a 
whole.  And  so  it  is  with  the  ministry.  Wlien  tht, 
cross-lights  of  jealous  emulation  ami  the  glare  ol 
constant  notoriety  are  softening  toward  the  darkness 
in  which  lies  the  pure  judgment  of  God  and  the 
peace  of  being  forgotten  by  mankind,  then  that 
which  has  been  lying  behind  them  all  the  time 
cumes  out ;  and  the  old  preacher  who  has  ceased  to 
care  whether  men  praise  or  blame  him,  who  has 
attained  or  missed  all  that  there  is  for  him  of  success 
or  failure  here,  preaches  on  still  out  of  the  pure  sense 
of  how  precious  the  soul  of  man  is,  and  the  pure  di- 
sire  to  serve  a  little  more  that  which  is  so  worthy  of 
his  service,  before  he  goes. 

Let  me  follow  still  farther  the  enumeration  of  the 
qualities  which  grow  up  in  the  preacher  from  his 
value  for  the  human  soul.  Courage  is  one  of  its 
most  necessary  results.  The  truest  way  not  to  be 
afraid  of  the  worse  part  of  a  man  is  to  value  and  try 
to  serve  his  better  part.  The  patriot  who  really  ap- 
preciates the  valuable  principles  of  his  nation's  life, 
is  h(!  who  most  intrepidly  rebukes  the  nation's  faults 
And  Christ  was  all  the  more  independent  of  men's 
whims  because  of  His  profound  love  for  them  and 
complete  consecration  to  their  needs.  There  come 
three  stages  in  this  matter;  the  first,  a  flippant 
•uperiority  which  despises  the  poople  and  thinks  of 


THE    VALUE   OF   THE  HUMAN  SOUL.      26"2 

Ihem  as  only  made  to  take  what  the  preacher  chooses 
to  give  to  them,  and  to  minister  to  his  support ;  tlie 
second,  a  servile  sycophancy  which  watches  all  their 
fancies,  and  tries  to  blow  whichever  way  their  vane 
points  ;  and  the  third,  a  deep  respect  which  cares  too 
earnestly  for  what  the  people  are  capable  of  being  to 
let  them  anywhere  fall  short  of  it  without  a  strong 
remonstrance.  You  have  seen  all  three  in  the  way 
in  which  parents  treat  their  children.  I  could  show 
yoa  each  of  the  three  to-day  in  tlie  relation  of  differ- 
ent preachers  to  their  parishes.  Believe  me,  the  last 
is  the  only  true  independence,  the  only  one  that  it 
is  worth  while  to  seek,  or  indeed  that  a  man  has  any 
right  to  seek.  An  actor  may  encourage  himself  by 
despising  or  forgetting  his  audience,  but  a  preacher 
must  go  elsewhere  for  courage.  The  more  you  prize  . 
the  spiritual  nature  of  your  people,  the  more  able  you 
will  be  to  oppose  their  whims.  There  must  be  the 
fountain  of  your  independence. 

And  here  too  is  the  power  of  simplicity  and  abso- 
lute reality.  All  turgid  rhetoric,  all  false  ornament, 
all  doctrinal  fantasticaliiess  must  disappear  in  the 
presence  of  a  supreme  absorbing  value  for  the  souls 
of  men.  The  conscience  and  the  taste,  when  both 
^re  pure,  will  coincide.  Every  divorce  which  separates 
ihem  is  a  parting  of  what  God  has  joined  tegethei. 
The  two  are  most  essentially  united  in  the  functions 
of  our  sacred  office.     The  man  wlioise  eye  is  set  upoD 


208  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  souls  of  men,  and  whose  heart  burns  "svith  tlie  de- 
sire to  save  thera,  chooses  with  an  ahnost  unerring 
instinct  what  figure  will  set  the  truth  most  clearly 
before  their  minds,  what  form  of  appeal  will  bring  it 
most  strongly  to  their  sluggish  wills.  lie  takes  those 
and  rejects  every  other.  The  mere  unwarlike  citizeu 
goes  lounging  through  the  Tower  of  London,  and 
among  the  old  armor  there  he  praises  that  which  he 
calls  beautiful.  The  soldier  walks  through  the  same 
halls,  and,  with  a  soldier's  instinct,  thinks  no  armor 
beautiful  which  will  not  kill  the  enemy  or  protect  the 
man  who  wears  it.  That  is  the  final  principle  of  all 
right  choice,  the  touchstone  of  good  taste.  The  ser- 
mon is  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  soul,  the  system  of  work 
to  the  purpose  of  work  always.  It  strikes  at  the 
root  of  all  clerical  fastidiousness  and  the  tyranny  of 
order.  It  is  wonderful  how  the  character  of  all  orna- 
ment in  a  sermon  declares  itself.  That  which  really 
belongs  to  the  purpose  of  the  sermon  is  always  good. 
That  which  is  there  for  its  own  sake  every  pure  taste, 
however  untrained,  instantly  feels  to  be  bad.  The 
one  is  like  the  sculpture  on  an  old  cathedral  which, 
however  rude,  was  meant  to  tell  a  story.  The  other 
is  like  the  carving  on  our  house-fronts  which  is  meant 
merely  to  look  pretty,  and  so  fails  of  even  that. 
There  are  some  men  born  to  positions  of  such  dignity 
that  they  are  doomed  to  be  either  illust'-ious  or  ridic- 
ulous.    And  so  ornament  when  it  is  applied  to  a  ser- 


THE    VALUE   OF   THE   HUMAN  SOUL.      26^ 

inon  must  either  do  the  lofty  work  of  making  truth 
plain  and  glorious  or  it  fails  of  everything.  It  cannct 
be  allowed  simply  to  amuse  or  please  as  may  the  or- 
nament of  an'  essay  or  a  poem. 

But  our  principle  goes  deeper  than  this.  This  con- 
trolling value  for  the  human  soul  must  save  a  preacher 
also  from  a  narrow  treatment  of  the  souls  under  his 
care.  If  he  values  them  more  than  any  theory  of  his 
own  about  how  souls  generally  are  to  be  treated,  he 
will  be  broad  and  try  only  to  lead  each  into  that  en- 
tire obedience  to  God  which  results  in  such  different 
experiences  for  us  all.  The  ascetic  theorist  values 
self-sacrifice  for  its  own  sake  and  would  enforce  it  in- 
discriminately. The  theorist  of  self-indulgence  says, 
"  No,  pain  is  a  curse.  Pleasure  is  good.  Shun  pain. 
Do  what  is  pleasant."  The  teacher  who  values  the 
souls  which  he  teaches  more  than  any  theory  says 
something  different  from  either.  He  says,  "  Not  en- 
joyment and  not  sorrow,  but  the  meeting  of  your  will 
with  the  will  of  God,  whatever  it  may  bring,  is  the 
purpose  of  all  discipline.  Be  ready  for  any  way  which 
God  shall  choose  to  bring  your  will  to  His."  But  to 
this  large  wisdom  no  teacher  can  be  brought  except 
Dy  a  true  sense  of  the  preciousness  of  the  soul  of  man. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  and  it  must  not  be  forn-otten, 
that  this  absorbing  conviction  of  the  value  of  the 
ouman  soul  has  its  besetting  danger.  That  danger  is 
ftot  slight  nor  casual.     It  is  important  and  essential. 


270  LECTURES   ON  PREACHIMu. 

The  daiij^er  is  lest,  in  our  eagerness  to  help  the  spir- 
itual nature  which  we  so  highly  value,  we  should  bo 
led  to  judge  of  the  trutli  of  any  idea  by  what  we 
think  might  be  its  influences  on  the  soul  for  which 
we  are  so  anxious.  The  tendency  to  estimate  and 
treat  ideas  according  to  what  appear  their  probable 
effects  on  human  character  has  been,  no  doubt,  a 
great  besetting  sin  of  spiritual  teachers  always.  I 
suppose  that  it  cannot  be  wholly  separated  from  any 
vocation  which  is  bound  at  once  to  seek  for  truth  and 
to  educate  character.  This  is  the  way  in  which  a 
great  deal  of  half-believed  doctrine  comes  to  be  cling- 
inor  to  and  cumbering  the  church.  Men  insist  on  be- 
lieving  and  on  having  other  people  believe  certain 
doctrines,  not  because  they  are  reasonably  demon- 
strated to  be  true,  but  because,  in  the  present  state  of 
things,  it  would  be  dangerous  to  give  them  up.  This 
is  the  way  in  which  one  man  clings  to  his  idea  of 
verbal  inspiration,  and  another  to  his  special  theory 
jf  the  divine  justice,  and  another  to  his  material  no- 
tion of  the  resurrection,  and  yet  another  to  his  notion 
of  the  Church's  authority  and  the  minister's  commis- 
sion. It  is  a  very  dangerous  danger,  because  it  wears 
the  cloak  of  such  a  good  motive  ;  but  it  is  big  with 
all  the  evil  fruits  of  superstition.  It  starts  with  a 
lack  of  faith  in  the  people  and  in  truth  and  in  God. 
Jesus  bids  us  not  to  cast  pearls  befoi-e  swine,  but  ha 
ices  not  bid  us  to  feed  even  swine  on  pebbles.    "  Go  "*. 


CHE    VALUE   OF   THE   HUMAN  SOUL.      271 

forbid,"  says  Bishop  Watson,  "  that  the  search  aftei 
truth  should  be  discouraged  for  fear  of  its  conse- 
ijuences  The  consequences  of  truth  may  be  subver- 
sive of  systems  of  superstition,  but  they  can  never  bo 
injurious  to  tlie  rights  or  well-founded  expectations 
of  the  human  race."  There  is  nothing  that  one  would 
wish  to  say  more  earnestly  to  our  young  and  ardent 
ministers  than  this.  Never  sacrifice  your  reverence 
for  truth  to  your  desire  for  usefulness.  Say  nothing 
which  you  do  not  believe  to  be  true  because  you  think 
it  may  be  helpful.  Keep  back  nothing  which  you 
know  to  be  true  because  you  think  it  nvAY  be  harmful. 
Who  are  you  that  you  should  stint  the  children's 
drinking  from  the  cup  which  their  Father  bids  you  to 
carry  to  them,  or  mix  it  with  error  because  you  think 
they  cannot  bear  it  in  its  purity?  We  must  learn  ii\ 
the  first  place  to  for)n  our  own  judgments  of  what 
teachings  are  true  by  other  tests  than  the  conse- 
quences which  we  think  those  teachings  will  produce ; 
and  then,  when  we  have  formed  our  judgments,  we 
must  trust  the  truth  that  we  believe  and  the  God 
from  whom  it  comes,  and  tell  it  freely  to  the  people. 
He  is  saved  from  one  of  the  great  temptations  of  the 
ministry  who  goes  out  to  his  work  with  a  clear  and 
Ronstant  certainty  that  truth  is  always  strong,  no 
matter  how  weak  it  looks,  and  falsehood  is  always 
jFcak,  no  matter  how  strong  it  looks. 

But  if  we  bear  this  danger  in  our  minds  and  are 


272      LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

upon  our  guard  against  it,  then  the  value  for  our 
brethren's  souls  will  help  us  to  avoid  many  false 
standards.  It  will  give  interest  to  many  people 
whom  otherwise  we  should  find  very  uninteresting. 
There  is  much  in  the  minister's  training  to  make  him 
value  purely  intellectual  companionships.  There  is 
a  tendency  in  many  ministers,  whose  disposition  leads 
them  to  value  truth  more  than  men,  to  let  them- 
selves be  drawn  almost  exclusively  into  the  society  of 
those  whose  ways  of  thought  are  like  their  own.  I 
think  it  is  a  wonder  to  many  people  who  are  not  min- 
isters, how  one  man  who  is  the  pastor  of  a  great  par- 
ish can  be  genuinely  interested  in  so  many  people  of 
such  various  characters  and  lives.  A  good  many 
people  and  even  some  clergymen  take  it  for  granted 
that  it  is  not  possible,  and  treat  the  appearance  of 
Buch  universal  interest  as  a  pretence,  necessary  in. 
order  to  keep  up  the  parish  feeling,  and  so  a  very 
valuable  accomplishment  in  a  minister.  But  it  is  not 
so.  No  man  ever  did  it  successfully,  year  aftei 
year,  as  a  pretence.  Tlie  secret  of  it  all  is  simply 
the  great  sense  of  the  value  of  the  human  soul 
brought  home  and  individualized  upon  these  human 
souls  committed  to  our  care,  as  a  magistrate  sees  all 
the  dignity  of  the  law  I'epresented  in  the  settlement 
of  the  pett}'  quarrel  that  is  brought  before  his  court. 
The  large  conception  of  the  value  of  humanity  must 
ajo  before  the  special  value  of  one's  own  parishioners^ 


THE    VALUE   OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL.      278 

otherwise  the  pastoral  relation  softens  into  mere  per- 
sonal fondness,  or  else  hardens  into  a  rigid  and  for- 
mal treatment  of  the  people  according  to  arbitrary 
classifications  which  lose  alike  their  general  human- 
ity and  their  personal  distinctness.  There  is  a  min- 
istry which  is  all  the  more  personal  because  of  its 
broad  humanness  ;  a  ministry  which,  beginning  with 
the  sacredness  of  man,  counts  all  men  sacred,  and 
touches,  with  its  own  peculiar  pressure  upon  each, 
the  lives  of  strong  men  and  little  children,  of  women 
and  boys  and  girls,  of  working  people  and  people  of 
idle  lives,  of  saints  and  sinners,  as  the  rain  and  dew 
of  God  which  water  the  earth  feed  both  the  oak-tree 
and  the  violet ;  a  ministry  which  makes  its  care  for 
every  soul  dearer  and  more  sacred  to  that  soul  be- 
cause it  is  evidently  no  mere  personal  fondness,  but 
one  utterance  of  that  Christliness  which  deeply  feels 
the  preciousness  of  the  souls  of  all  God's  children. 

I  have  not  time  to  dwell  upon  tlie  help  which  a 
perpetual  value  for  the  souls  of  men  must  i-ender  to 
our  own  spiritual  life,  and  so  to  our  efficiency  as 
preachers.  Indeed,  it  is  the  great  power  by  which 
our  souls  must  grow.  This  is  tl  e  niinistr}^  of  the 
people  to  the  preacher,  which  is  )ften  greater  than 
any  ministry  that  the  preacher  can  render  to  the 
people.  I  assure  you  that  the  relation  between  the 
pastor  and  his  parish  is  not  right  if  the  pastor  thinks 
the  obligation  to  be  all  upon  one  side,  if  while  he 

]8 


'274  LECTURED   OX  PREACHING. 

lives  with  them  and  when  he  leaves  them  he  is  not 
always  full  of  gratitude  for  what  they  have  done  foi 
him.  A  pastor  who  is  insensible  to  this  cannot  dc 
the  best  good  to  his  people.  And  the  sort  of  hdp 
which  a  minister  gets  from  his  congregation  whose 
souls  he  vahies,  is  a  direct  complement  of  the  good 
which  he  gets  from  his  study.  He  n(^eds  them  both. 
His  study  furnishes  him  with  ideas,  with  intellectual 
conceptions,  and  his  congregation  furnishes  him  with 
an  atmosphere  in  which  these  ideas  ripen  to  their 
best  result.  The  minister  as  he  grows  older  changes 
some  of  the  opinions  which  he  used  to  hold.  The 
new  opinions,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  are  truer  than  the 
old  ones  were.  But  greater  than  all  such  changes 
are  the  deepening  convictions  about  all  spiritual 
things  which  come  from  the  long  years  of  dealing 
with  men's  souls  and  which  color  every  opinion 
whether  new  or  old.  The  conviction  that  truth  and 
destiny  are  essential  and  not  arbitrary,  that  Chris- 
tianity is  the  personal  love  and  service  of  Christ,  and 
that  salvation  is  positive,  not  negative,  —  convictions 
such  as  these  they  are  that  fill  and  richen  the  preach- 
er's maturer  years ;  and  they  are  convictions  whose 
clearness  and  strength  he  owes  to  that  occupation 
which  has  both  demanded  and  cultivated  a  value  for 
the  souls  of  men. 

As  to  the  nature  of  this  value  for  the  human  soul, 
notice,  I  beg  you,  that  it  is  something  more  rhan  tho 


THE    VALUE   OF   THE  HUMAN  SOUL.      27o 

mere  sense  of  the  soul's  danger.  It  is  a  deliberate 
estimate  set  upon  man's  spiritual  nature  in  view  of 
its  possibilities.  The  danger  in  which  that  nature 
stiinds  by  sin  intensifies  and  emphasizes  the  value 
which  we  set  upon  it,  but  it  does  not  create  that 
value.  I  think  that  this  is  important.  I  think  that 
we  are  sometimes  apt  to  let  our  anxiety  for  the  sal- 
vation of  souls  degenerate  into  a  mere  pity  for  the 
misery  into  which  they  may  be  brought  by  sin  ;  and 
the  result  of  such  a  low  thought  is  that  when  we 
have  been  brought  to  believe  that  a  soul  is,  as  we 
say,  "  safe,"  that  it  has  been  forgiven  and  will  not 
,  be  punished,  we  are  satisfied.  The  thought  of  rescue 
has  monopolized  our  religion  and  often  crowded  out 
the  thought  of  culture.  I  think  that  the  tone  of  the 
New  Testament  is  different  from  this.  I  know  how 
eminently  there  the  truths  of  danger  and  rescue 
always  appear.  I  know  that  Christ  "came  not  to 
call  the  righteous  but  sinners  to  repentance,"  and 
that  He  was  called  Jesus  because  He  should  "  save 
His  people  from  their  sins  ;  "  but  all  the  time  behind 
the  danger  lies  the  value  of  that  spiritual  nature 
which  is  thus  in  peril.  It  is  not  solely  or  principally 
the  suffering  which  the  soul  must  undergo  ;  it  is  the 
loss  of  the  soul  itself,  its  failure  to  be  the  bright  and 
wonderful  thing  which,  as  the  soul  of  God's  child,  it 
iught  to  be.  That  is  the  reason  why  the  process  of 
salvation  cannot  stop  with  the  removal  of  penalties 


276  LECTURES   ON  PREACH  J  NO. 

and  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  It  must  include  all  th« 
gi'adual  perfection  of  the  soul  by  faith  and  love  and 
obedience  and  patience.  This  is  the  reason,  too,  why 
those  who  have  taken  only  a  half  view  of  the  com- 
plete salvation  are  apt  to  be  severe  on  those  who 
have  seen  only  the  other  half.  Half  a  truth  is  often 
more  jealous  of  the  other  half  than  of  an  error. 

This  larger  and  deeper  value  for  the  human  soul,  I 
think,  is  seen  in  all  the  sermons  of  the  greatest 
preachers.  It  is  not  mere  pity  for  danger  that  in- 
spires them  to  plead  with  men.  That  might  move 
them  to  a  sort  of  supercilious  exertion,  no  matter  how 
intrinsically  worthless  was  the  thing  in  peril,  as  one 
might  start  up  to  pluck  even  an  insect  from  the  can- 
dle's flame.  But  it  is  a  glowing  vision  of  how  great 
and  beautiful  the  soul  of  man  might  be,  of  what  great 
things  it  might  do  if  it  were  thoroughly  purified  and 
possessed  by  the  love  of  God  and  so  opened  free  chan- 
nels to  His  power. 

There  are  special  causes  which  make  this  great 
po'.*^er  of  which  I  have  been  speaking,  the  sense  of 
the  value  of  the  soul,  more  difficult  to  win  and  keep 
in  this  age  of  ours  than  it  has  been  in  many  other 
times.  There  are  two  characteristics  of  our  time 
which  have  their  influence  upon  it.  One  is  the  ten- 
dency of  philosophy  to  divert  itself  from  man  and 
turn  towards  other  nature,  and  in  its  study  of  man 
to  busy  itself  least  with  his   spiritual    nature,  most 


2^HE    VALUE   OF   THE  HUMAN  SOUL.      277 

with  his  physical  history.  The  other  is  the  strong 
philanthropic  disposition  which  prevails  about  us,  the 
desire  to  relieve  human  suffering  and  to  promote 
human  comfort  and  intelligence.  The  first  of  these 
tendencies  would  certainly  make  it  more  than  usually 
hard  to  realize  the  spiritual  value  of  humanity ;  and 
the  second,  while  it  makes  much  of  man,  cares  mainly 
for  his  material  well-being  and  is  always  disposed  to 
treat  the  individual  as  subservient  to  the  interests  of 
the  mass.  The  general  result  is  one  of  which  I  think 
that  there  can  be  no  doubt,  a  difficulty  in  the  real, 
vivid,  perpetual  sense  of  the  worth  of  man's  spiritual 
nature  such  as  has  very  rarely  beset  those  in  other 
ages  who  have  tried  to  serve  their  fellow-men.  At 
such  a  time  we  need  to  hold  very  strongly  to  the  con- 
stant facts  of  human  life  which  lie  below  all  such  tem- 
porary changes,  and  to  be  very  sure  of  their  reappear- 
ance. We  need  a  keen,  quick-sighted  faith  which 
shall  discover  the  first  signs  of  what  must  surely 
come,  a  reaction  from  the  partial  tendencies  of  the 
time.  We  need  a  generous  fairness  to  discover 
thought  and  feeling  which  is  really  spiritual  but 
which  has  cloaked  itself,  even  to  its  own  confusion, 
in  the  forms  and  phrases  of  the  time. 

But,  more  than  all  of  these,  we  who  are  preaching 
in  such  days  as  these  need  to  understand  these  meth- 
ods by  which  in  any  time  we  must  acquire  and  pre- 
serve tlie  sense  of  the  preciousness  of  the  human  soul 


278  LECTURES   ON_Plii: ACHING. 

What  are  these  methodk?'  First  of  all,  before  a  man 
can  value  the  souls  of  other  men,  he  must  have  learnt 
to  value  his  own  soul.  And  a  man  learns  to  value 
his  own  soul  only  as  he  is  conscious  of  the  solemn 
touches  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  upon  it.  Ah,  my 
friends,  here  is  the  real  reason  why  he  who  preaches 
to  the  inner  life  of  othei'S  must  himself  have  had  an 
inner  life.  Not  that  he  may  take  his  own  experience 
and  narrowly  make  it  the  type  to  which  all  other 
experiences  must  conform ;  but  that,  having  learnt 
how  God  loves  him,  having  felt  in  many  a  silent  hour 
and  many  a  tumultuous  crisis  the  pressure  of  God's 
hands  full  of  care  and  wisdom,  he  may  know,  as  he 
looks  from  his  pulpit,  that  behind  every  one  of  those 
faces  into  which  he  looks  there  is  a  soul  for  which 
God  cares  with  the  same  thoughtful ness.  In  liis 
closet  he  has  first  seen  the  light  which  from  his  closet 
he  carries  forth  to  illuminate  the  humanity  of  his 
congregation  and  bring  out  all  its  colors.  The  per- 
sonal desire  to  be  pure  and  holy,  the  personal  con- 
sciousness of  power  to  be  pure  and  holy  through 
Christ,  reveals  the  possibility  of  other  men. 

Again,  a  preacher's  view  of  all  theology  ought  to 
be  colored  with  the  preciousncss  of  the  human  soul. 
It  is  possible  for  two  men  to  hold  the  same  doctrine 
and  yet  to  differ  very  widely  in  this  respect.  To  one 
of  tb(im  tha  Christian  truths  reveal  much  of  the 
glory  and  mercy  of  God     to  tlie  other  they  shine  also 


THE    VALUE   cF   THE   HUMAN  SOUL.      279 

with  the  value  of  the  spiritual  manhood.  To  this 
last  the  Incarnation  reveals  the  essential  dignity  of 
that  nature  into  union  with  which  tlie  Deity  could  so 
marvellously  enter.  The  Redemption  bears  witness 
of  the  unspeakable  love  of  God,  but  also  of  the  value 
underneath  the  sin  of  man,  which  made  the  jewel 
worth  cleaning.  And  all  the  methods  of  Sanctifica- 
tion,  all  the  disciplines  of  the  Spirit  open  before  the 
watchful  minister  new  insight  into  the  possibilities  of 
that  being  upon  whom  such  bounty  of  grace  is  lav- 
ished. I  think  that  we  ought  to  distrust  at  least  the 
form  in  which  we  are  holding  any  theological  idea,  if 
it  is  not  helping  to  deepen  in  us  the  sense  of  the  pre- 
ciousness  of  the  human  soul,  first  impressing  it  as  a 
conviction  and  then  firing  it  into  a  passion.  There  is 
not  one  truth  which  man  may  know  of  God  which 
does  not  legitiuiately  bear  this  fruit.  I  beg  you  more 
and  more  to  test  the  way  in  which  you  hold  the  truth 
of  God  by  the  power  which  it  has  to  fill  you  with 
bonor  for  the  spiritual  life  of  man. 

It  is  evident  as  we  look  at  the  ministry  of  Jesua 
that  He  was  full  of  reverence  for  the  nature  of  the 
men  and  women  whom  He  met.  There  was  nothing 
which  He  knew  of  God  which  did  not  make  His 
Father's  children  precious  to  Him.  We  see  it  even 
\n  His  lofty  and  tender  courtesy.  How  often  I  have 
%een  a  minister's  manners  either  proudly  distant  and 
conscious  of  his  own  importance,  or  fulsome  and  fawn- 


Si80  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

ing  with  a  feeble  affectionateness  that  was  unwortay 
of  a  man,  and  have  thought  that  what  he  needed  was 
that  noble  union  of  dignity  and  gentleness  which 
came  to  Jesus  from  His  divine  insight  into  the  value 
of  the  human  soul. 

One  other  source  from  which  the  knowledge  of  thia 
value  comes  let  me  mention  in  a  single  word.  It  is 
by  working  for  the  soul  that  we  best  learn  what  the 
soul  is  worth.  If  ever  in  your  ministry  the  souls  of 
those  committed  to  your  care  grow  dull  before  you, 
and  you  doubt  whether  they  have  any  such  value 
that  you  should  give  your  life' for  them,  go  out  and 
work  for  them  ;  and  as  you  work  their  value  shall 
grow  clear  to  you.  Go  and  try  to  save  a  soul  and 
you  will  see  how  well  it  is  worth  saving,  how  capable 
i^Jsof  themosTcFOmijlele  salVaQon.  JNot  by  ponder- 
ing  upon  it,  nor  by  talking  of  it,  but  by  serving  it 
you  learn  its  preciousness.  So  the  father  learns  the 
value  of  his  child,  and  the  teacher  of  his  scholar,  and 
the  patriot  of  his  native  land.  And  so  the  Christi:in, 
living  and  dying  for  his  brethren's  souls,  learns  the 
value  of  those  souls  for  which  Christ  lived  and  died. 

And  if  you  ask  me  whether  this  whose  theory  I 
have  been  stating  is  indeed  true  in  fact,  whether  in 
daily  work  for  souls  year  after  year  a  man  does  see 
in  those  souls  glimpses  of  such  a  value  as  not  merely 
justifies  the  little  work  which  he  does,  but  even 
makes  credible  the  work  of  Christ,  I  answer,  surely, 


THE    VALUE   OF   THE  HUMAN  SOUL.      'i%\ 

yes.  All  other  interest  and  satisfaction  of  the  n  tiis- 
try  completes  itself  in  this,  that  year  by  yea^  the 
minister  sees  more  deeply  how  well  worthy  of  nfi-- 
nitely  more  than  he  can  do  for  it  is  the  human  .oul 
for  which  he  works. 

T  do  not  know  how  I  can  better  close  my  lee  ares 
to  you  than  with  that  testimony.  May  you  fii  d  it 
true  in  your  experience.  May  the  souls  of  men.  be 
always  more  precious  to  you  as  you  come  ah/aya 
nearer  to  Christ,  and  see  them  more  perfectly  a.i  He 
does.  I  can  ask  no  better  blessing  on  your  min.-stry 
than  that. 

And  so  may  God  our  Father  guide  and  keep  yosa 
always. 


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